On 19 June 2025, the theater festival Performing Exiles opened with Destination: Origen by the Iranian director Mohammad Rasulof.
As early as 2024, with his film Die Saat des heiligen Feigenbaums, the director had reflected on the protests in Iran against the mullah regime and for women’s freedom, addressing violence, control, and patriarchal coercion within a family.
In an emotional address before the performance, he spoke not only about the political tension three years earlier, but also about the current situation in which the actresses were unable to contact their families and friends in Iran.
Alongside a German actress, three performers in exile stand on stage: Niousha Akhshi, Mahsa Rostami, and Setareh Maleki. In the post-show talk, the director emphasized that a necessary, practical aim of the production was to enable the three actresses to obtain legal residency in Germany for the first time.
On stage stands a forest of ropes that, like the dense aerial roots of a fig tree, coils around the three female figures. Two weeks earlier, Israel had attacked Iran; the mullah regime then cut off communication links to the outside world. The artists face a double dilemma. They can neither return home nor truly put down roots elsewhere.
Rasulof’s set design and the choreographed movements intensify the piece’s political statement. The women move through a mesh of hanging ropes and cables, a symbol of life under the Iranian regime. Again and again, harsh white light and loud noises pierce the darkness like gunshots. Yet the performers must continue to find their way through this menacing scenery. In their monologues they repeat a central line: “The eyes are afraid, but the feet keep going.”
At the beginning of the performance, a puppet body that can be taken apart and reassembled shows how, under political pressure, a person loses control over their own body. At the same time, the estrangement that arises when one lives in exile yet remains inwardly connected to home becomes palpable.
The entire production is kept in dark tones. The performers wear black clothing. In the middle of the piece, a faint light appears on the projection surface at the front of the stage—a symbol of hope. The actresses carefully gather these small points of light until there are enough to illuminate not only a round light object on stage but also two lamps in the auditorium. Here the director employs a simple, direct aesthetic to express his longing for peace and universal values.
In the final image, a glass display case stands at center stage. Inside lies a withered tree stump. Two actresses are tied to the case with a rope. If one understands the stump as “Origen,” the director poses the question: After a long and painful path of resistance, can we really leave behind the traumatic experiences of political violence?
Or do we continue to carry within us an indelible feeling of connectedness to our place of birth, surviving with strength but torn within?
These questions remain open. But the theater festival Performing Exiles should not leave the following question unanswered:
To what extent, and in what ways, does it—under the banner of the “exiled”—actually reach those affected?
The actresses mentioned during and after the piece that they often live in precarious housing situations in Berlin.
So what, then, can Berlin—a city that regards itself as a city of exile—actually offer exiled artists? What forms of political and cultural protection are afforded to them?
Perhaps these are some of the pertinent questions we should be asking ourselves today.