Polish actress Ewa Benesz, one of the last witnesses of Grotowski’s theatre experience, is preparing to retire from theatre and begin a new chapter at nearly 80. After more than 30 years of artistic research in Italy, she has decided to step down as a theatre master and return to her native Poland to write her memoirs. How will her knowledge be passed on? What will remain of her 60 years of artistic exploration?

Our research on Ewa Benesz has deep roots. In 2003 we were struck by her intense humanity while attending the theatre workshops she led in her hermitage in the mountains of southern Sardinia. Since then we have taken part in more than ten workshops in different Italian cities. The decision to turn this long personal acquaintance with the actress into a creative documentary matured at the beginning of 2020, when Ewa, at 77, told us she had decided to take stock of her Italian experience and leave the house where she had lived for thirty years in the mountains near Castiadas (Sardinia), to return to Lublin, Poland. During writing, our relationship with Ewa deepened and allowed us to grasp some contradictory aspects of her character and way of life: for us, these elements are precisely the chance to portray her in her full complexity. Our gaze aims to be close and empathetic to her unique way of being in the world, while keeping the necessary distance to observe—with irony—her idiosyncrasies. Ewa embodies a model of an independent, free woman, able to create the conditions to pursue an original artistic and existential research. The best way to truly enter her world is to patiently observe those moments she might consider useless, or would prefer to hide.