Avignon Festival: Two Plays on Social Exclusion by Salim Djaferi and David Murgia

At the 2026 Festival d'Avignon, two productions tackle social exclusion from different angles. In the official 'IN' program, Salim Djaferi's 'Bâtir' investigates the racial dimensions of French housing policy since the 1950s, drawing on archival research from the Seine-Saint-Denis department and his own family history. The play uses only physical gesture, no images of housing estates, to recount the forced relocations and administrative classification of immigrants by 'cultural distance from France.' In the 'OFF' program, David Murgia's 'Rumba' concludes his 'Trilogy of Poor Devils' (following 'Laïka' in 2017 and 'Pueblo' in 2020), co-created with Italian author Ascanio Celestini. The piece follows an actor and a musician rehearsing a play about Saint Francis of Assisi on peripheral parking lots, giving voice to marginalized individuals including racists like Giovanni. Murgia emphasizes that these invisible people lack authors or directors to tell their stories. 'Rumba' runs at Théâtre des Doms. The festival also features Lisette Lombe and Marc Namour's 'Ce que le ventre dit' at Théâtre des Doms, later moving to Paris's Le 104.