Silent Breath

Première: 29 November 2018, Ljubljana City Theatre
Running time 1 hour 50 minutes. No interval.

DIrector Nejc Gazvoda
Dramaturg Eva Mahkovic
Set designer Darjan Mihajlović Cerar
Costume designer Andrej Vrhovnik
Composer Laren Polič Zdravič
Lighting designer Boštjan Kos
Language consultant Maja Cerar

Cast 
Mirjam Korbar, Jure Henigman, Ajda Smrekar, Matej Puc, Tjaša Železnik and Lara Wolf (AGRFT)

A year after their father’s unexpected death, an estranged family reunites to see the youngest daughter off as she leaves to study in Ljubljana. The youngest, whom the family calls Kiddo, has got two siblings, both more than ten years her senior, and a mother who does not understand her (or any of her kids). The whole family has been affected by the loss of the father more than they are willing to admit. Petra, who lives with her boyfriend Janez in Ljubljana, is going through a sad phase. Her brother Marjan, the eldest of the siblings, still lives at home and seems to have given up on life. As the play opens, Kiddo retells the family story from a perspective in which the people around her are no longer what they used to be, some of them are not even present anymore. Silent Breath is a one-act play about a family whose little tragedies are the tragedies of us all, a play that is reluctant to judge what we are, but merely observes the parts in which we are the most human.

Nejc Gazvoda continues to explore family pathologies; in the play he not only dissects a typical Slovenian family, but also explores feelings of being lost and lacking any prospects, as well as the burning ambition of generation Y, and other most up-to-date features of the Slovenian everyday reality.

Director

As a high school student, he wrote the short stories collection Vevericam nič ne uide (Nothing Escapes the Squirrels) which was among the nominees for the best literary debut in 2004; a year later he received the Golden Bird Award from the Liberal Academy for it, as well as the award for the best short prose collection, the Dnevnik Fabula, in 2006. He graduated in film directing from the UL AGRFT. In 2011, he wrote, directed, edited and designed the sets for his first feature A Trip, which won a number of awards at home and internationally. His second feature, Dual, garnered similar acclaim. He co-wrote the films Personal Baggage (2009) and Class Enemy (2011). He’s also active in the performing arts, his plays are increasingly produced on Slovenian stages and in 2019 he won the Grum Award for his play A Silent Breath.