production Bortolotti / Fontana | Invisibile Kollettivo
by and with Nicola Bortolotti, Lorenzo Fontana
lighting design Eleonora Sabatini
video dottor Antonio Maestri
recorded voices Elena Russo Arman, Alessandro Mor
thanks to Elena Russo Arman, Alessandro Mor, Dario Martinez, Alessandra Novaga, Luca Riccati, Cantieri Meticci Bologna
HeLa is the acronym for a cell line of vital importance in research into cancer and many other diseases, but those four letters also encapsulate an extraordinary story and, above all, a person in the flesh.
Baltimore, 1951. Young African-American Henrietta Lacks is about to die of cancer and the doctors, without asking for consent, take a sample of her tissues and soon realise a phenomenon never before recorded 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 her family, who only many years later learn the full story. This enthralling story raises topical questions about life and death. Who disposes of the biological material of which we are made? Who guards the memory of what we have been?
