What if a theatre company set up a political party ?

What if a theatre company set up a political party ? The Estonian NO99 did just that in 2010 : their party Unified Estonia was a fictitious and satirical project but the majority of the population thought it was a real party. In the 44 days between the first press conference and the inaugural congress (for which 7000 believers turned up !) Unified Estonia was followed by a camera team. In the documentary Ash & Money from 2013 we see how the probably greatest performing arts event in recent European history was accomplished. All means were deployed to question the mechanisms of our present democratic system : campaign posters, interviews with newspapers and talk shows, exaggerated feuds with other politicians and even a You Tube series in which the underhand methods of other parties are torn to shreds. What began as a stunt that wanted to make the real populist politics superfluous with fictitious hyperpopulism resulted in a hallucinating documentary that mercilessly uncovers the rotten core of our democracy. If you don't deal with politics, then politics deal with you.

Theatre NO99 is the most well-known Estonian theatre company abroad. Producers Tiit Ojasoo and Ene-Liis Semper founded the company in 2005. Special is that they called their first production no.99 and since then they have been counting down to zero. At this moment they are halfway : the film Ash & Money is no.55 and the performance My wife is angry (also to be seen at NEXT) is no.51. Once all the numbers have been used Theatre NO99 will dissolve itself. But before that happens the Estonians are on an international conquest. My wife is angry was the very first performance from Estonia that

was selected for the Festival d' Avignon. Ash & Money is the first film of the company and elicited the same fascination at film festivals worldwide. Recently Theatre NO99 also has made a co-production with KVS in Brussels and the Münchner Kammerspiele. This year they are a guest at NEXT for the first time !