Monika Ertl – Eine Frage des Widerstands

Her struggle against the Bolivian dictatorship also leads to a confrontation with the Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, who was infiltrated by the US intelligence agency CIC and is working for the military regime. He, in turn, is being tracked by the French Nazi hunters Serge and Beate Klarsfeld and Régis Debray. For Monika Ertl, the spiral of state violence and counter-violence ends fatally.

In *A Question of Resistance*, four actors and actresses from Germany, France and Bolivia use a variety of film sequences, interviews with contemporary witnesses, archive material, theatrical scenes and musical compositions to create a play about the life and motivations of Monika Ertl.

Caught between resistance, violence and revolution, they ask: How can they tell the story of this cinematic, revolutionary life? At what point, and why, does a civilian take up arms? Who legitimises counter-violence? And how would they themselves act if democracy were to turn into a dictatorship and begin making people disappear?

The production forms the third and final part of Felix Meyer-Christian’s ten-year documentary theatre trilogy (2016 to 2026) on the extraordinary and often little-known life of Monika Ertl. To this end, he filmed with the COSTA COMPAGNIE across two continents – in La Paz and Paris, Santa Cruz and Lyon, the Alps and the Andes – and interviewed former fighters, eyewitnesses and historians. This long-term research will culminate in 2027 in a standalone documentary film directed by Meyer-Christian, co-produced with ZDF and in collaboration with ARTE.

Since 2012, the Berlin-based COSTA COMPAGNIE has been creating documentary works that combine performative, cinematic and choreographic methods, realised through stage productions, immersive 360° performances, virtual and augmented reality, and film. It focuses on global political upheavals, regions affected by war and conflict, and the people caught up in them, who often remain under-represented in the arts, the media and politics.

To this end, the group conducts research and films in locations including eastern Ukraine, Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, the USA, Thailand, Japan, Mozambique and South Sudan. Their work has been presented at events such as the Impulse Festival, the ‘Politik im Freien Theater’ festival, the Achtung Berlin Film Festival and the Max Ophüls Prize Film Festival.

• In German, English, French and Spanish.
• With English and German surtitles.