History History History

Deborah Pearson delves into her own family history to reflect on the way we continually reshape and censor the past.

On October 23rd, 1956, a revolution broke out in Budapest. Hungarians rose up against Soviet hegemony and fought troops on the streets, from their homes, and from their revolutionary headquarters at the Corvin Cinema. In a poignant and funny act of remembering, artist and theatre-maker Deborah Pearson loosely "translates" the film that was meant to be screened at the cinema on that very night – a long-forgotten football comedy in which a conman is mistaken for star striker Ferenc Puskás.

Pearson grew up watching this film repeatedly on VHS - it became her primary source of contact with her grandfather, an actor who stars in the film. Her mother, who escaped with her family as a refugee when she was 7 years old, would pepper the translation with her own memories of living in Communist Hungary, with which Pearson then developed an obsession.

Layering the personal and the political, Pearson delves into her own family history to reflect on the way we continually reshape and censor the past.

Doors 19:30 Start 20:00