‘Ai Weiwei’s Turandot’ + Talk w. Ai Weiwei

The Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is a multi-talented artist, and with his radical reimagining of Puccini’s masterpiece Turandot at the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome, he can now add an opera to his oeuvre. In Ai Weiwei’s Turandot, Maxim Derevianko has captured the process behind it – and at the film’s international premiere, you can meet the filmmaker and Ai Weiwei in a conversation about film, art, opera, especiallyof course, Turandot.

The opera, set in a mythical past in Beijing, is both loved and controversial – accused of exoticism, racist stereotypes, and banned from being performed in China. Perhaps this is exactly why Ai Weiwei has chosen to take it on?

With his artistic vision, he uses Turandot to mirror today’s global crises – from the war in Ukraine to refugee flows and the pandemic. Maxim Derevianko’s film follows the Chinese artist’s creative process and shows how classical art can still provoke, challenge, and perhaps even change our present time. This evening, you will have the chance to hear the two artists in conversation about the ideas behind the opera as well as the film.