In the Summer of 2020, a selection of 9 Dutch residents – diverse in age, profession and place of residency – try to reach consensus via a series of digital meetings. What do their arguments say about solidarity and personal freedom? Can we decide at all about a priority when we speak about human lives? A short film of this social experiment was premiered at the Forum on European Culture Festival. 

During the COVID-lockdown, people all over the world needed to follow strict regulations, and were deprived of making decisions on their own life. The Vaccine, an experiment that had its world premiere with Dutch participants, observes how normal citizens experience the pandemic and what they would do if they had decision-making power.
 

Fictional frameworks of the game: Vaccines have arrived to the country. These vaccines are injectable even in an at-home setting and provide complete protection for five years then they need to be renewed. However, vaccines arrived in a limited quantity, which is enough only for half (50%) of the population. Since the decision is more than a professional question, the decision-makers have chosen to develop the distribution model to be recognised as determinative in the future according to the principles of the pure democracy. Which are the guiding principles when distributing the vaccine? Who can get them first? The community needs to decide.

Árpád Schilling uses theatre tools and dramaturgy as means to bring different perspectives into debate and conversation. 


The Vaccine is an idea of Árpád Schilling, developed in cooperation with the Forum on European Culture.

CAST

Participants: Bob, Nienke, Szymon, Rein, Marjon, Halim, Tarek, Anouk, Margriet

Director: Árpád Schilling
Production: Forum on European Culture
Production coordinator: Ildikó Ságodi
Video editing: Néstor Romeo Clemente

FILM

The recording about the premiere can be watched on this link:

Participants of the discussion after the film screening: Árpád Schilling, director; Ira Helsloot, professor of the politics of safety and security at the Radbout Universiteit Nijmegen; psychologist Bertus Jeronimus from the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen.

TRAILER