an institute. a classroom. A biology topic on the blackboard: survival, adaptation, selection. The teacher clings to an almost naive and at the same time heroic idea: if they learn to think, they will be free. Out, The country has been trapped in an endless war for years., sold as “the Just War”. At first it's a rumor, a background hum, but soon the official notifications begin to arrive. One by one, male students are called up.
The teacher insists on continuing with the syllabus, in preparing the final tests as if there was still a future to reach. But violence sneaks through the cracks: in the language, in the bodies, in the way the boys look at each other. The class becomes an emotional training ground, and the classroom in a place where normality no longer protects anyone.
Cucaracha portrays how an educational community tries not to fall apart while the State turns its adolescents into war material. And asks an uncomfortable question:
Can education save us no matter what??
Address: Julián Fuentes Reta
Dramaturgy: Sam Holcroft
