Saturday 18 November 2023 at the Teatro Cuminetti in Trento.
HeLa is the acronym that indicates a cell line of vital importance in research on cancer and many other diseases, but those four letters also contain an extraordinary story and above all a person in the flesh. Baltimore, 1951. The young African American Henrietta Lacks is about to die of a tumor and the doctors, without asking for any consent, take a sample of her tissues, soon realizing a phenomenon never recorded before in the history of medicine: cancer cells continue to grow outside the body, Henrietta is‘ immortal ’. The incredible discovery, and the billion-dollar industry that develops from the trade in her cells, remain unknown to her as well as to her family, who only many years later will know the whole story. This exciting story raises very topical questions about life and death. Who has the biological material we are made of? Who guards the memory of what we have been?
Bortolotti / Kollectivo Invisible Fountain
By and with: Nicola Bortolotti, Lorenzo Fontana
Lighting design: Eleonora Sabatini
On video: Dr. Antonio Maestri
Recorded Voices: Elena Russo Arman, Alessandro Mor
Thank you: Elena Russo Arman, Alessandro Mor, Dario Martinez, Alessandra Novaga, Luca Riccati, Cantieri Meticci Bologna
Production: Invisibile Kollettivo
