The theatre piece of the director Rabih Mroué is an impressive combination of the personal and political: for Riding on a Cloud he invites his brother Yasser to play the role of a character that resembles him personally. A person who was injured in the Lebanese civil war and lost his ability to use words, Yasser began to shoot videos, which fuse with his recounted memories on stage to form a subjective picture of the political developments in Lebanon. Riding on a Cloud also describes the fragile construction of biography, which emerges between political reality, memories, facts, and fiction. For Mroué this is always the starting point for artistic self-reflection, which he then transposes for the theatre and exhibitions.

Pictures; one disappears and another appears. Most of the time, he doesn’t understand the connection between a picture and the one next to it.
He needs someone who knows him well to tell about it and set the picture in motion, so it’s not still anymore.
When memories in the head are like still pictures with no scenes from the past, how does the memory work?

In Collaboration with Sarmad Louis.
Assistant director: Petra Serhal.
Assistant: Janine Baroud.
English translation: Ziad Nawfal.
Duration: about 65 minutes.
Language: Arabic with English subtitles.

Co-produced by Fonds Podiumkunsten, Prins Claus Fonds, Hivos
Stichting DOEN - (The Netherlands).

Special thanks to Lina Saneh, Frie Leysen, Mroué's family (Souad, Ahmad, Ammar, Ziad, Maha, Mazen, Nabil and Fatima Bazzi), Ahlam Awada, Samar Maakaroun, Janine Broud, Karma and Nadi Louis.

Thanks to Hito Steyerl, Manal Khader, Eric Baudelaire, Paul Khodr, Lamia Joreige, Joanna Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, Fariba Derakhshani, Mohamad Hojeiry, Matthias Lilienthal, Ali Zuraik, Louis Family, Petra Serhal, Hagop Derghougassian, Ziad Mroué, Christine Tohmé and Ashkal Alwan.

Special thanks from Darat al Funun to Raed Asfour director of Al-Balad Theatre.