The Confessions of Roee Rosen

2007 – 2008

At the beginning of Confessions Roee Rosen declares that now that he is about to die, he disavows a career replete with lies, scandals, and fake identities, and joins the confessional tradition. These confessions, however, are delivered by three female surrogates – Roee Rosen 1, 2 and 3 – illegal foreign workers residing in Israel. They deliver the monologues in Hebrew, a language they do not speak, by reading a transliteration of the text to Latin letters from a teleprompter. Marks on the teleprompter scroll indicated to the performers to occasionally mimic the body movements and facial expressions of the real Roee Rosen, at the other side of the camera. The text is built as a hybrid: on the one hand, it offers a rather dubious account of my own “crimes,” but on the other hand, it is partially plausible as a monologue of a foreign worker. The Confessions are divided by musical interludes performed by The Roee Rosen Confessions Ensemble, featuring exclusively women musicians.

 The Confessions cycle features three supplementary works, echoing the commodity logic of “special additions:” a trailer (Confessions Coming Soon), a music clip (I Was Called Kuny-Lemel), and a gag-reel (Gagging During Confession).

The Confessions of Roee Rosen, a full English translation of the script