Between September 3rd and September 7th 2022, the performances in the official competition of the second edition of the "Șerban Ionescu" Theatre and Film Festival will be performed at the Sala Mică of the "I.L. Caragiale" National Theatre in Bucharest, as part of the young theatre micro-season #FestivalulContinuă.

Disney Thriller is about isolation and maladjustment, about our troubled brains self-generating alternate realities in order to exist. Two brothers have self-isolated in their home and lead a hikikomori existence. Until showman Cosmo Disney disturbs their hermitage. There are two ways of coping with the contemporary world: one is the Stray brothers' way, retreating into the house and their own fantasies; the other way is Disney's world - living outside in a world like a sick Disneyland.

"In the play we find intense existential fears: fear of loneliness and abandonment, fear of losing one's parents, fear of overtly expressing one's sexuality, fear of the unknown, fear of leaving home (a fear newly acquired by many people during the pandemic), fear of the responsibilities of adult life. I think people today have an atomized Self, they are withdrawing from a world that increasingly feels like it is bombarding them. How many times do we all believe, when we examine our state of mind, in the imminence of a psychological apocalypse? I believe that today we are more and more susceptible to fear in all its forms: anxiety, anguish, panic attacks, etc. until we become paralyzed and freeze. We close ourselves up tightly in our own cocoon, ruminate and, in the end, are just as frightened of everything outside ourselves. We are afraid of others and of ourselves, of who we really are. How do we want to live? Should we shy away from the world, deny it, shut ourselves away in our shell of personal fears? Should we try to adapt?" Monica Stoica, director

Translated by Andreea Codrea-Boeriu