Cock Cock... Who's There?

Six years ago, Finnish/Egyptian filmmaker Samira Elagoz was raped by her then-boyfriend. A year after the attack, Samira decided to use her 'rape anniversary' to conduct a series of filmed conversations which detail both her family and friends’ response to the assault. The experiment revealed well-intentioned, honest, and sometimes challenging attitudes toward gender relations and sexual violence.

Curious about what it also revealed of men and their reaction to her, Samira’s personal research project moved to the next stage. Across three years and three continents, she initiated a series of interactions with strangers in their homes using Craigslist adverts and other online dating sites.

As a personal response to contemporary culture’s highly sexualised treatment of young girls’ bodies, and her fearless, often frightening ‘research’ into consent, gendered power dynamics and female sexuality, Cock Cock... Who’s There? is an unforgettable subversion of victimhood and a coolly powerful reclamation of self. Elagoz refuses to conform to the stereotype of a ‘rape victim’, reasserting the tenet that the personal is political in a world in which the virtual and the real are inextricably intertwined.

Winner of the Prix Jardin d’Europe at Impulstanz in 2017; the Total Theatre Award at the 2018 Edinburgh Fringe and the 2017 Andre Veltkamp Prize in The Netherlands, Cock Cock... Who’s There? is undeniably uncomfortable, consistently brilliant and utterly unique.

Part video-art, part lecture – it’s a deeply troubling, thought-provoking show that offers no easy answers… Almost everything about Elagoz’s approach… forces us to question our own prejudice.
The resulting show is fascinating.

thestage.co.uk