 Hello, my name is Rosa Maria Costis-Cisneros and I am collaborating with the Independent Theatre Hungary. I get to sit down today with two incredible powerhouse women that are actually sisters as well. We have Simonida Selimovich and Sandra Selimovich. I think, Simonida, I'm forgetting your second surname because I know you've recently married, so I'm terribly sorry. So, again, we're here with both of you to talk about heroes. If you could tell me a little bit about yourself, your background, yes, that'd be great. Shall we start with you, Simonida? Yes, okay. Hi, my name is Simonida Selimovich. I live here in Vienna and I grow up here in Vienna. The first seven years I was in Serbia, I was born in Serbia, and then we immigrated to Austria, to Vienna. I'm one of the typical Gastabyte children. They call us here because we came in the 90s here and they need workers from four Eigenbrokers. They pay cheap and they work here and they want to send them actually back to their countries, but they didn't. They stay here. So, yeah, and I started to act when I was 12 in a children's series in Vienna, together with Sandra. Sandra was 10 and I was like 11 and a half, 12, like this. And after that, yeah, I started to model and to play movies with like Klaus Maria Brandauer, Juliette Grégo, and I was like 16 or 17. And I started my, yeah, then I studied acting and 2010, we found Romano Svato, the theater organization Sandra and me and we did also like the famous one is Roma Army, that is still played in Maxingorchi theater. And yeah, we are doing every year a new place and together and sometimes also we are playing in other theaters like Sandra now in Buktiata, one of the famous in German speaking countries. Okay, and Sandra, can you tell us a little bit about you and your background? Yes, of course. Hello, I'm Sandra Silimovic. I think I don't want, no, I want to tell my age, I'm 40. Yes, I'm 40. I started to act with 10. I became an actress 2004, like really with a diploma, like professional. And thanks God, since then, I never had to do like, how do you say this in English, like a board job, like a science job to pay your bills, like to be a waitress or whatever, like never. I was always living from art. But also I think because I'm really doing like interdisciplinary, like multi talented, water format, and dancing, directing, writing, rapping, singing. So, wait, they say that my internet is bad. Can you still hear me? I can hear you. Yes. Hello. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yes. So, so that's how I, I think I lived or survived. Good, not, of course, not rich. But I always had a job or actually more jobs, like some, somewhere directing and they're texting and they're seeing, they're having a workshop, and they're acting. So I really had a lot of jobs. And last year, since the pandemic, it was really, for me, a big challenge, this change, like really from doing actually too much, like three, four, five things in the same time parallel, and then nothing. So it was really very, very hard and very, not just, not just financially, but also mentally, like how to deal with it, you know, with this emptiness, you know, like not to anything and not to have any, any mission and not to feel kind of, I don't know, like important, I feel like that this, what we do is important and can empower other people, especially women. And in this time, really felt really empty and like very depressed last year in the lockdown, really. So I'm really glad that they opened the theaters this year, a few months ago, and we really could start to work. And yes, I think you wanted to talk about heroes today. That's right. Not our last. Yeah. So if you could tell me a little bit about heroes in your role within the work, that'd be great. Yeah, if you want to go Sandra. Yeah. Yeah. It was a little bit like not not complete, of course, but a little bit in the style with soccer and amenza, like I was meeting the drama tour. And we were writing actually, like a plot. A plot is like you've writes really like in the first scene, this and this has to happen in the second, this and this has to happen. And then just the author just write the dialogues down. But you actually already have in your head, like the characters, and what has to happen, and how it will end, who will die, whatever. No. So it was it was really also collective work, like that we had before. It was exactly when was it also 2011 or something, when was this very big refugees like wave coming for to Tresquil to our biggest asylum seeker like center. So they had a march. And it was like a very big movement from from from asylum seekers. And that's why we decided to do a about about this topic. And especially about women because I worked with another director with asylum seekers with a play, like to do a play with them. But what was for me always missing was where are the women? I just worked with men. And to be honest, it was a little bit exhausting only to have young men to be surrounded with. I was the only in this time it was like 10 years ago. And I also I seem very young, like a young woman and a lot of men. It was kind of strange. And I also really was curious, what what is happening with the women? Are they really all abandoned there and alone? Or are they also trying to to to, you know, to run away or some somehow to escape from their countries? And what is their stories? So we were starting to dig like our our author, our drama took. She was really doing a research and and doing a lot of interviews with with all this professional like in this asylum seekers, like centers and with lawyers, with social people, social workers. So she really also asked people who really had this background and really to have real stories. So we connected kind of real stories, fictional things that it was still something that could really happen. Like it was not something which we completely like invented, because it was also kind of based of true stories. This was what I think is very, very, yeah, what what it like, what's the parallel parallel things, you know, yeah. And Simonita, your role in the work. Yeah, I was in the, how you call this week, we call it in German Productionsleitung, and I was playing producer. Yeah, the producer. And yeah, but there is also another word for this. I'm sorry, my English is not that good. And yeah, I worked also with the author all together with Sandra. We met her and we had a lot of interviews from people that were working in prisons with this with people that they did, they were sitting in prison without doing anything just because they don't have the right documents, the right place to stay. And this was a work that depressed me a lot when I was reading the interviews or when I was listening again, because we recorded also the interviews and we put them together and we created three women coming from different places where they, I mean, and talk their stories but put them in just three stories. And this was a very, I mean, a work working with the law also and with how prison is working also as an institution there and also how you could not work against law. This was very, I mean, for us, a very big topic in this play also. And for the women from that country is how they are put it together in prisons to live like year without coming out. Nobody is coming to visit them with also how they are oppressed, the people that they're working in the prison and never to know also could I stay here or will I be deported again in this country where the people will kill me when I'm back there. And this was the very important question also how you are dealing emotionally with this and also how you could build relationships with other people in the prison or how is the relationship with you. I mean, if you're like in this case alone and which kind of thinking these people have and through these interviews we had a few how this could work also and how we could be the I mean the actors that they're staying there and talk about stories that are not ours. But for them and to be also on point and to not put some wrong stuff in it is to be clear with all these things that we were talking about about deportation, about family, about relationships, about law, about waiting, waiting somewhere you don't know where you are actually, but also the way that you came from from one country to the other also the interviews with the police if you were an LGBT person how which questions they're questioning you and I mean through Afghanistan now what's now happening we have again this situation here and this play I thought oh it's an old play heroes we don't have to show it anymore but now I am again they asked me people hey do you want to play it again because it's very I mean it's not an old topic this is a topic that it's happened since years since I mean yeah how we also talked about I mean these are really refugees and it's not just about you know that they they are from war coming from somewhere and which questions they have to face when they come in another country they are hoping for help and instead of them they put them in the prison because they don't have the right papers and they don't could they could not document where they come from and why they don't have a passport anymore and especially for us was very also the female perspective very important how you as a woman because her wife this kind of interviews how they're dealing with this which questions are they facing in this case and which opportunities they it is they have this was kind of very I mean because they don't have any opportunities not that much not like a normal person also for the documents which documents you could have to stay in a country and to be legal and to have a normal work and what if you don't have had the opportunity in the past to learn something to be educated as a woman because they're oppressed like in some countries in eastern countries yeah yeah this all all these questions we put together and we worked like I don't know eight months or 12 months in this research wow yeah and then we had the rehearse process about six weeks yeah and we so you really gave the the research and development side of the work some time a lot of time and that's quite powerful and I think perhaps you know you just said six weeks to kind of rehearse and put it into a theater I think that's it that sounds short but because you had so much love kind of dedicated already to it beforehand perhaps was it easy to make that transition to to put it on stage yeah because I mean you have the time one year is not that long how we think it's long because you have to find the right person to interview to put all these stories together to also research the law of different countries and to talk also with lawyers with judges how they decide why they decide in this way what the kind of thinking they have and then to then we had the process okay putting now creating three different women three different stories and putting them together in a one room and yeah and then in this process and then it's very fast I mean if you know how you want to work in some ways very fast for this also she has a when we was working and she had some visions how she will direct it and this was yes it was very very nice and very very good because we know actually what about we are working and also the actors that we choose we choose them together Sandra and me we cast them and yeah and then at the end okay and I have and she was like and you have to play one of the actors because okay yeah and then I was acting I joined in okay this and it was yeah but we really had great extras like for heroes really all three and also the policeman or like the guard was also very good for me he was I think in one rehearsal almost crying because she had to play such an asshole because he felt so bad inside and he always asked after like please tell me was it too much tell me when it when it when I hurt you you know because I really wanted it that looks really real like how he takes her for example to do this you know and and and and of course if you if you rehearse it you can't not really like hurt someone if you're doing it professional so they really rehearse it but still was always very afraid to to hurt them because he's such a good guy like the opposite what he had to play you know like a very slimy you know like a abusive guy so and the women all three were very good very different qualities and yeah and the thing played itself it really lives from these three characters you know they have a lot of text a lot of dialogues a lot of monologues then a song a dance it's really it's it's it's really a lot like it's really hard work what these three women are doing on stage and I think it's long I think it's one hour 45 I think heroes it's really long and is there any memorable moments that you've had in either preparing for the work or in sharing the work Simone that you've done you know you were in the research and also you know as an actress does anything come to mind that you'd like to share maybe or was it all just very important and memorable and yes we had actually we had a lot of fun together the whole the team the whole team we had I remember one shooting and we went to the whole day we were shooting and this was very nice and at the end Sander decided let's go to the disco because you know how it was just a dream you know we was talking about the dream about how it would be when you come out of this prison and yeah the fantasy was the best yes yeah and we did this do you remember Sander when we did this fantasy this was one of the nicest days for us because we went to Nash marked and we went then to the disco and then we had sushi what we would like to eat where we want to go to dance what we want to see in Vienna and how we would feel and this was one of the one very memorable day for me for us for the whole team yeah this yeah and then the end also to be in this club and dance like in the four in the morning yeah this was just you know first I just make a shooting maybe for four or five hours and then it was like really private nice time also to have together with the team yeah yeah and Sander is there anything else that comes to mind for you let me think you mean something negative also or in general something negative I mean it could be just something that sticks with you because sometimes when we put out these plays these works that are quite um exploring big topics sometimes people even from the community might have a very strong reaction to it or you know different people have said different things to me um but if nothing comes to mind you know I think you both people liked it I think the only thing that I remember now was the last time that we had to play because we had a long pause and then we want we wanted to do it again and then um one actress says that uh she she's pregnant and she will uh she will get twins so it was nice like congratulations but it was like oh my god what are we doing and you know if one of three is missing it's a lot you know so she was out and then one week before the rehearsal the the other woman called and said I think I have corona I'm not sure but I have fever and coughing like this typical signs and before I'm not doing the test I'm not coming to rehearsing so and we had to rehearse and to play and to shoot it there's also shooting so we really had to replace from three women two which is a lot yeah and I will I was so nervous I thought that it's kind of impossible to learn such such a big role because in this play there is really a main role because it's about these three women you know so and they all have like massamanos the same amount of text you know so um so I really thought that it will be a big disaster and it cannot work I was so nervous all the time and then I really experienced something which was really something which was not from the earth like what the fuck how they can have this kind of brain they really came prepared not just prepared when we were shooting they really delivered the the text and everything like they played it many times and they just learned it in two days so this was really crazy for me how actress can can do it if they really are into it and interested and yeah really wanted uh the yeah so I was really very very very positive impressed and surprised with this really and I think also that heroes you really can play also like um so Karina Mensa these are plays for me which are um how you call this in in in English like timeless in I think in 20 years you still can play it maybe change in the in the text maybe I don't know one name of a president or whatever you know what you mean but I think this will I think so that this kind of topics will still exist also like in 10 years you know like discrimination you know and and deportation whatever um so that's the sad thing and but on the other side of course with this play we are really timeless we really can do it also in 10 years again yeah and people will say yes I know this this is like it happened yesterday yes so I think this is kind of special and also a little bit sad that um I don't know I I have hope but I really um I really hesitate that this will that uh that it will change very very fast you know with our bios or how you say uh you know the system of our life and to have the right papers the right passport in your hand to be the right person with a new passport and if not you're nothing so I really think that in 10 years it would be the same with this two plays yes and yes I think it's timeless and that's timeless quality as you said makes it you know people can relate to it and can continue to relate to it also hopefully we won't need such plays to you know to help us reflect on on humanity but you know that's one of the powers of of the work you girls have women have been doing and and you know with both plays with both works bringing in people from various ages various groups coming together um also the willingness and the spirits to you know you said two women two of the actresses had to leave for different reasons and then two other actresses came in and could just you know have a superpower and be a superhero um and so it's it's I think the it shows the spirits and the quality of of the spirits and the power of women as well and on that note I thank you to powerhouse superhero women for sitting down with us and sharing with us your experiences your story and maybe in 10 years who knows we'll sit down and talk again about heroes and and you know see it on a different stage in a different country and be able to reflect on it so thank you so much thank you so much Sandra and Ida thank you Rosa thank you okay thank you thank you Rosa bye bye