LISTEN TO MY AMAZING PHOTOGRAHS - ISABELLE REYNAUDISABELLE REYNAUD

International Theaterfestival MINDELACT 2025
Mindelo, São Vicente – Cabo Verde

Listen to My Amazing Photographs is a site-specific documentary performance originally developed by stage director Isabelle Reynaud for Aarhus Festival in 2011, now adapted for Cape Verde in celebration of the nation’s 50th anniversary of independence.

Here, you sit beside a storyteller who, with a selection of personal photos in hand, shares astonishing life stories under the open sky.
The elder storytellers invite you into intimate, sensuous, and lively encounters where playful, poetic, surprising — and at times tragic — moments unfold with immediacy.

Listen to My Amazing Photographs weaves together past and present, shared memories, and deeper insight into how independence has shaped Cape Verdean lives.

Contributing to the nation’s 50-year independence celebration with this site-specific documentary performance has been an honour beyond measure.
8 courageous storytellers shared their “amazing” photos and glimpses of life in a total of 50 performances — a tribute to the people, the memories, and the history of Cape Verde.

Voices of the audience:

“A unexpected gift. Thank you”

“I have been 30 years abroad, I miss my country and my language, – I almost died of homesickness – and today listening to the stories connected me with my past and all the things that weren’t in my memory anymore, just came back.”

“I didn’t know about this part of the story of my own country, I wish I could learn it at school.”

“The Festival is great, but this is the one I most enjoy the amzing photos. It’s the one that touches my heart the most

“I found my father in one of the pictures. He had traveled to Holland in that boat – Senhora das Areias – I didn’t have that picture. It was a beautiful surprise to see him there.”