My Revolution Is Better Than Yours

Half a century has passed since in May 1968 the riots and strikes in France created one of the iconic cultural landmarks of the twentieth century. But student protests in Paris were only one face of a global network of self-organised grassroots movements and rebellions — the Black Panthers and demonstrations against the Vietnam War in the USA, the convulsions in Western Europe and in the Eastern Bloc, including student rebellions in Belgrade, the Prague Spring, and the political crisis in Poland, even the protests at the Red Square in Moscow. After the initial explosion of enthusiasm, most of these movements splintered into a range of positions on the political spectrum: from the neoliberal mainstream to left-wing radicalism, from middle-class centrism to extreme conservatism.

My Revolution Is Better Than Yours is inspired by the protests of ’68 as one of the first genuinely global phenomena, its potential legacies, as well as perceptions of this turbulent period from half a century’s distance. Based on the wealth of archive materials and testimonies of the events’ participants from different countries, Sanja Mitrović’s new production considers the breadth of lived experience and historical amnesia, the effects of words and the meaning of actions, and the possibility of remembrance and commemoration. Unfolding through a constellation of characters, ideas, images, and statements which relay the fragmented character of the era, My Revolution Is Better Than Yours lets the complexity of ’68 reverberate with the current situation. Are the revolutionary ideals confined to the dustbin of history and marketing slogans of global corporations, or do they still to talk to our experience today?