June leads an invisible existence in a log cabin in the deep south of the US. Surrounded by forests, she spends her days in front of the TV—until the signal starts to falter. With the static at our heels, we flash through an American dreamscape of TV psychics, takeout burritos, misty motel rooms, and ghosts from the past.
Junebug pulls you into a hallucinatory sound world where reality and imagination seamlessly merge. Theater maker Anna Verkouteren Jansen mixes theater, cinema, podcast, and a touch of Efteling into a fully immersive experience. In this film, the screen simply looks back.
An audio performance for all your senses
Surround sound and cinematic storytelling immerse you in June’s world of escapism, grief, Mariah Carey, and empty rooms. Lots of empty rooms. Junebug pushes reality aside a bit and shows what moves behind the curtains: a world that is not visible, but all the more palpable.
Anna Verkouteren Jansen: “When I dealt with death as a child, I took refuge in fantasy as an answer to the emptiness. Gradually, escapism has become my second nature. In Junebug, we see June flee into the television, her new-age mother Barb calls TV psychic Magic Tina weekly, and she, in turn, believes mainly in transactions. I find it moving how people create stories to get a grip on the randomness of existence.”
Junebug is an English-language performance / Language no problem
“‘Junebug’ strikingly evokes the truth of our ‘image culture’ as an ersatz experience leading to mental death. The real death that seemed to be kept at a distance follows anyway. Brilliant.”
– Pieter T’jonck, Pzazz.be
“Special immersive theater experience (...) Precisely because your own imagination plays the biggest role in giving meaning to what you hear and see, the observations about the mind hit harder.”
– Rosalie Fleuren, Theaterkrant.nl
“Light gallows humor and delightful absurdism. An intriguing mix of performance, film, podcast, and music.”
– Eric Alink, festival Boulevard