What remains of a family whose home keeps disappearing? ? The Relatives follows the family history of composer Sergej Newski. Based on interviews with his grandmother Anna Timofeevna Kravchenko and unique Super 8 recordings from 1968, the result is a multimedia narration across four generations, from 1912 to the present. The form is radical: a video conference between times and augmented reality as a dramaturgic principle. Interviews and documentary materials transform into a conversation that blurs the lines between past and present. Cutting-edge AI morphs live cams and archival materials into one another, not as a technical spectacle but as a way to search for a believable form in which the story can be told. People are shown in a state of seemingly endless, intergenerational flight, maintaining their ethos in the most impossible circumstances. People who do not sacrifice their empathy. People who can laugh and find the most unconventional solutions in their fight for survival. This is an international co-production that asks: How do we remember that which cannot be told? How do we give shape to the act of vanishing?

An event organised by Deutsche Oper Berlin in collaboration with VOICES FESTIVAL BERLIN, Karsten Witt Musikmanagement, Musik der Jahrhunderte/Festival ECLAT and Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, supported by CreaTech Frontiers and Arts Council England.

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