Sabine Harbeke

margrit looks around, it is her celebration. the first celebration of the family in years, since her son had gambled away all the money, since she had to close her shop…
margrit barely dared to hope for it, but they’re really celebrating, dancing, eating and drinking. her granddaughter emma is beaming exorbitantly, horst-holger is happy despite the critical glances, miranda is wishing for a baby and singing for leon, who never asked an older woman for her phone number before, arwa idealises her life and is praying silently, moritz is harshly fighting with his uncle, small simon is happily playing between them and, somewhere, arthur is sitting and missing his wife. suddenly, margrit knows what to do with her life: this one night amidst her loved ones, and then that’s it.
margrit feels relieved, at ease. her euphoria about the decision conflicts with the self-perception and the life plans of friends and family. facing mortality, each is confronted with the painful parts of their biography, their own illusions can’t make reality look better anymore, the masks fall. margrit wants to leave, but is held up again and again. desperately and intensely, they are fighting for fleeting moments of happiness or oblivion. the passion and wastefulness here and now can console some of them, but not others. and the night takes its course, unstoppable.
(Sabine Harbeke)

In eine nacht lang familie Sabine Harbeke designs a cosmos of futilities, in which the characters don’t lose their sense of humour despite the sparseness of daily lives, win their desires and hopes against all odds and, sometimes, find a moment of happiness at the border of insanity. As usual and still unique.
Where people from different generations meet, members of a family are separated by many things – political stances, social questions and cultural conflicts become private dynamite – and Margrit’s celebration becomes a mirror of a world that’s changing.