In 2014, the critically acclaimed theatre director Julia Gräfner and her ensemble travel to Burkina Faso to escape the European cultural scene and Julia’s own artistic paralysis. She wants to stage DANTON’S DEATH. Having arrived in Ouagadougou, she discards the imported European concept after staging a street theatre performance. Michael Pietsch fights his way out of the ensemble crisis with a new idea: he makes a puppet of the president and independence fighter Thomas Sankara, who was murdered in 1987. His alleged murderer is Blaise Compaoré, who has ruled the country autocratically for 27 years. When protests break out on the streets of Ouagadougou, fiction becomes reality: Julia sees herself as the spearhead of the demonstrations against corrupt elites. The national borders close - the military has staged a coup against the democratic revolution - preventing the other members of the ensemble from fleeing. It comes down to a showdown with Julia – who’s playing the role of her life.
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