Unboxing

Grandpa asks naively, but provocatively: “Why don't you have a sweetheart? Someone as pretty as yo? Well, at least with the long hair?” Aunt Nicole carries the media chant into the living room: “If you don't want to get beaten up, don't dress like that!” Uncle Stefan sings the refrain of all those who want to preserve the status quo: “Don't you have any other problems?” Instead of being united in cosy, peaceful contemplation and warmth, the extended family faces each other at Christmas in bitter irreconcilability. The question arises: can we still talk to each other without a guide, without an awareness concept? How can the spiteful discourse about life plans be conducted respectfully or even interestingly? The “young” people try to come up with a guide for the next family celebration at Easter. But even in this small group, the questions become more and more complicated...

UNBOXING begins as a fast-paced inventory of the relationship between generations and genders and evolves into an examination of social cohesion. Based on interviews with a wide range of people about their respective points of view, Suna Gürler delves into the desire for complex answers to big questions: What role should, can, do I want to play? In a world where there is no agreement on how we should think? How much self-determination is possible?

Trigger warning: This production deals with queerphobia, transphobia and sexism in family contexts and thematises structural gender-based violence. Sensory warning: Partly loud music.