Directed by Grzegorz Jarzyna based on the play by Dorota Masłowska, TR Warszawa, Ninateka (2014), Poland

No Matter How Hard We Tried was directed by Grzegorz Jarzyna based on the play by Dorota Masłowska, commissioned by TR Warszawa and Berlin’s Schopenhauer am Lehniner Platz. The piece is a masterful exposition of the language of advertisements, glossy magazines, and tabloids; it confronts consumptionist dreams with the reality of a family living below the poverty line. All of this is merely a shell beneath which a more serious question lies: a question about the “us” in the title, about national identity, tradition, and memory.