Portrait de Rita

In September 2023, Mathis, a 9-year-old schoolboy near Charleroi, is subjected to racist insults from his classmates. In reaction, he goes into a rage deemed uncontrollable by the school, which decides to call the police. Upon arrival, his mother Rita, discovers her son tackled to the ground by a police officer.

From this act of racist violence, author and director Laurène Marx, a specialist in the seule en scène, and Bwanga Pilipili, actress, author and director, choose to tell the story through the journey of the mother, Rita, a Cameroonian businesswoman turned housekeeper. How does the white gaze contribute to the construction of a reductive, objectifying vision of women? The author questions an identity trajectory that does not belong to her, exploring areas of confusion and projection. The singularity of the show lies in the meeting of three viewpoints: that of a mother, at the heart of the story; that of an actress, an observer and herself a victim of ethno-racial discrimination; and that of a white trans author, who contributes her own reflections on whiteness. Three intersecting perspectives, united by the same experience of fetishization and dehumanization. Based on interviews with Rita Nkatbanyang, Laurène Marx and Bwanga Pilipili target a systemic racism that suffocates a woman in her work just as it suffocates her son on the ground.