Biennale des écritures du réel

Founded in 2012, the Biennale des écritures du réel is a festival anchored in Marseille to bring art, politics and society into dialogue. It defends the vision of a committed, shared theater that explores new relationships between artists and researchers, writers, teachers, residents, young audiences... Words, stories and poems from a raw reality, the writings of reality invite us, at the crossroads of the political and the poetic, to question the world through the eyes of others. This eighth edition will host 75 multidisciplinary events over 5 weeks, from March 18 to May 3, 2026, at 30 partner venues in Marseille. Performances, readings, author encounters, conferences, workshops, shared creations and participatory events will bring together authors, researchers, artists and audiences to reflect on the notion of L'oubli. At the crossroads of "Seeing" and "Doing", knowledge and practice, thought and action, we invite the Biennial's audiences to play several roles: come as spectators, make an attempt at open stages, try their hand at an artistic practice in a workshop, join shared creations or a programming committee, or a group of volunteer accomplices. Why the theme of forgetting? Unlike memory, forgetting is part of the present. It's less a state than an act, an active power. And it's the present, in the here and now, that interests us at Théâtre La Cité. We also prefer the notion of "forgetting" rather than "remembering", to distance ourselves from the current use of "duty to remember", which is based on emotion rather than a critical eye, and which has become a civic religion rather than a real awareness. Through the programming of this eighth edition, we wish to transmit a movement of thought and action that invites the inhabitants of Marseilles - in dialogue with artists, researchers and authors - to reinterpret their past, to decipher sudden, accidental or imposed forgetfulness, to reappropriate it, in an attempt to invent another present. We'll be looking for our personal and collective places of loss or those on the verge of disappearing, to imagine a possible common future. How can yesterday's vanished stories be tomorrow's promises? What can forgotten worlds teach us to build our future? We believe it's necessary to address this notion in the current French and global context, where victim-based competition, the tendency to compartmentalize identities and the reconstruction of fantasized narratives for the benefit of political and economic interests are widespread. It's all the more urgent to do so, given our shared responsibility towards the youngest members of society, and the Biennial's desire to be one of their possible agoras. In putting together this edition, we are keen to: break down the binarity of the center-periphery relationship in this city; cross-fertilize the skills of professionals from the worlds of art, research and social medicine; break down hierarchies of value in terms of professional and non-professional artistic practices; blend disciplinary approaches, that of the social sciences and art in its plurality, of a scientific language and a more poetic one, to move forward together towards a better way of saying, and a fortiori a better way of living together. Focus on the program: * Minga de una casa en ruinas Show March 19 at 7pm and March 20 at 9pm - Théâtre Joliette * Algerian memories in perspective Ciné concert March 28 at 7pm - Cité de la musique * Passports to freedom Show - Passeurs de Mémoires company, retracing the "ordinary integration journey" of Samira Belhoumi, who arrived from Algeria with her family from Algeria at the age of 7 March 29 from 3pm at Mucem * Nos mères, nos daronnes Film by Bouchera Azzou March 29 from 3pm at the Mucem * Writing against oblivion: recounting the Lebanese civil war Readings and meetings April 3 at 7pm - Bibliothèque de l'Alcazar * Good bye Schlöndorff, sound correspondences from a falsified war Concert April 3, 8:45pm - Théâtre de l'Oeuvre * Hewa Rwanda, lettre aux absents Show April 9 at 7pm - Friche la Belle de Mai * Erdal est parti Show April 22 at 7:30pm - l'Astronef * Closing time Shows May 3, 4:30 pm to 11 pm - Au center avec scène Méditeranée (former Théâtre Toursky)