Cinéthèque | News from Athens
WHAT IS ASKED TO A STATUE IS THAT IT DOES NOT MOVE (2024)
Film by Daphné Hérétakis, Fresnoy graduate – National Studio
32 min
In Athens, nothing seems to move, its inhabitants seem motionless like statues. Yet somewhere a caryatid escapes from a museum and a small group demands the destruction of all antiquities. Filming might be the only way to not remain stuck in the dark.
THE SUMMER WITH CARMEN (2023)
Film by Zacharias Mavroeidis
1h46
Démos, a dark Greek with overflowing sexuality, spends his summer on the beaches of Athens with his long-time friend, Nikitas.
Together, they try to write a script inspired by their tumultuous life, especially that of the beautiful Démos, whose heart is torn by his last break... Lecture by Jean-Paul Fargier, director, critic, author of several works on video art and in particular Bill Viola: «Over time». Organized with Exquisite Time!
THE REFLECTING POOL
United States | 1977-79 | 7 mn
Suspended in time, a man hovers in a frozen jump over water, while subtle techniques of fixed framing and multiple capture join disparate layers of time into one coherent image. Viola writes that “the play is about the emergence of the individual in the natural world – a kind of baptism.”
CHOTT EL-DJERID
(A PORTRAIT IN LIGHT AND HEAT)
United States | 1979 | 28 min
Starting from a natural physical phenomenon: the mirage as an optical effect peculiar to warm countries, overturning distant objects as if they were reflected in a water sheet, Bill Viola works in the very material of each image, of each moment of vision, this scientific hypothesis, and makes this objective “lie” a subjective truth.
THE PASSING
United States | 1991 | 54 min
The Passing haunts the realms of consciousness, subconscious and desert landscapes of the South-West, mixing sleep, dreams and the drama of waking life in a breathtaking masterpiece.