What was the starting point of your project? What made you want to go and interview these politically engaged youths around the world?
In 2011, journalist, director, and radio producer Caroline Gillet and I decided to create a radio programme about youth between Algeria and France. We arrived there just as the "Arab Spring" was unfolding, and the project had to be rethought. We decided to focus on Algerian youth, to hand the microphone to those who were getting involved in one way or another, who were challenging the status quo in their daily lives. Alger, nouvelle génération—broadcast on France Inter in 2011—was born from that and allowed us to launch a series of documentaries focusing on encounters and friendships around the world. Five other series, each about ten hours long, followed, for France Inter and France Culture. The idea was to follow the people we interviewed into their homes, to meet their families, to script the series in episodes. We then went on to Istanbul, Beirut, and Sarajevo. Each time, we sought out spaces where different communities had to live side by side. Through editing, we created bridges between the cities. The beginnings of "virtual" exchanges took shape, and intuitively, we felt it was important for these young people to meet, to actually talk to each other in real life. I was then fortunate to travel alone to Gaza, Tehran, and Moscow to ask questions in bedrooms or living rooms. I wanted those hard-to-cross borders to no longer be a barrier to their meeting. That’s how the Radio Live performances began: to spark encounters that might not have or shouldn't have happened, between people who don’t necessarily look alike or agree on everything but who can build things together and share meaningful moments in their lives.
How did the theatrical form come to be?
It responded to a need to bring the people we interviewed together in the same place, at the same time, in front of an audience. We wanted to blend different media—live drawing, live music, archival material—so that their words would feel alive and well-documented. The video images we project interact with their testimonies and reflect the time we've spent together, the intimacy built over the years. We've been sharing our lives for more than ten years: there is a balance to strike between long-standing friendships and new encounters. That’s what keeps the collective alive. Nothing we say on stage is scripted in advance, and it’s through that collective listening that the performance evolves, night after night, remaining fluid and unexpected. We often sum up the format with: “someone is talking to you.” It’s as simple—and as difficult—as that. The stage is a protected space where things can be said that might not be voiced on the radio. Some people are present, and others are absent but brought into existence: it’s Hala’s father, killed by the Syrian regime, and it’s Yannick’s grandmother, killed during the genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda, and it’s many others as well. It doesn’t bring justice, it doesn’t fix anything, but it ensures they are not forgotten. In October 2023, Amir Hassan, then trapped in the war in Gaza, wrote to me under the bombs: “I’m doing my duty as an adult not to fall into hatred.” That’s a question underlying all the stories told on stage, and we know that no answer is ever simple or final.
For the Festival d’Avignon, you are creating a triptych centred on questions of reconciliation, which will continue with three more chapters at the Théâtre de Chaillot in 2026. How was this triptych, entitled Vivantes, Nos vies à venir, and Réuni-es, developed?
For these new chapters, we’re building on an approach we first experimented with for Vivantes—the first part of the triptych presented at the Festival—where the "main characters" of the stories join us in the field to conduct the investigation themselves. At the heart of each performance is a journey taken together: to Sarajevo, to Beirut, and finally to Kigali. For Vivantes, we traveled with Ukrainian Oksana, Syrian Hala, and Inès, to her mother’s home in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. What interested me was that the questions no longer came solely from me, but were shared between the four of us. When Oksana and Hala ask Inès’s mother questions while also speaking from their own experiences of war, her responses take on a new depth. These conversations begin to sketch out a collective story: the three women’s mothers, from Syria, Bosnia, and Ukraine, also entered a dialogue, which appears on screen. Musician Emma Prat immersed herself in the local songs during the trip. Through the editing process, we reveal the layering of time, years, and territories that we have travelled together.
What were the different stages of your journeys for the new chapters of this creation? And what encounters did you have along the way?
We had initially planned to go to Algiers. Unfortunately, the current diplomatic situation with Algeria is too difficult; we constantly have to adapt based on current events and everyone’s circumstances. On stage, throughout the triptych, there are eight stories: six come from long-time friends from Gaza, Kyiv, Sarajevo, Kigali, Latakia, and Damascus, and two are from new encounters, in Hermel in Lebanon and in Avignon. We went to Lebanon to explore the reconstruction of the region, to talk about the lives not yet lived, the ones we’re fighting for, and about education. We travelled to Kigali to reflect on the justice established after the genocide, on reconciliation as seen by the new generation, and the role of art in preserving memory. In the final chapter, we meet Sihame, who was born in France, grew up in Avignon, and whose parents are originally from Morocco. It’s yet another context of reconciliation: her story allows us to navigate between the centre and the outskirts of Avignon. Even within a single city, the borders are already numerous. Within a family, it’s about reconciling multiple identities. Despite the distance between these stories, it’s always astonishing to see how they intertwine, how they resonate with each other.
Interview conducted by Marion Guilloux in March 2025