I am Eugène Ionesco, French dramatic author.” Thus begins, before Donatella Baglivo’s camera, the father of the Theatre of the Absurd, the man who revolutionized the European stage of the twentieth century.

Born in Romania in 1909, raised between Bucharest and Paris, Ionesco carries within him the dual soul of the exile: rooted in two cultures, a stranger to both. The experience of the First World War marks his Parisian childhood. At nine years old, a school essay reveals his vocation: words, dialogue, theater.

He returns to Romania, becomes a professor of pedagogy at the high school in Bucharest, but the call of the stage is irresistible. In 1950 “The Bald Soprano” debuts in Paris: it is a scandal, a triumph, a revolution. “The Lesson,” “The Chairs,” “Rhinoceros” follow works that shatter theatrical conventions, revealing the absurdity of existence through nonsense and the grotesque.

“La Soif et la Faim” (Hunger and Thirst) definitively consecrates him. In 1970 he enters the Académie française the rebel welcomed into the Olympus of culture.

In this documentary Ionesco tells his story with his unmistakable ironic smile: the rebel angel who taught theater to laugh at human tragedy. Alongside his testimony, the memories of those who brought him to the stage: Jean-Louis Barrault, Nicolas Bataille (director of the world premiere of “The Bald Soprano”), Marcel Cuvelier.

Eugène Ionesco left us in 1994. His theater continues to question the sense and the nonsense of our existence.