ΕΜΣΤ’s Education Department, in collaboration with the Olympia International Film Festival for Children and Young People, invites children and teenagers to a special series of film screenings and activities.
OCTOBER
Sunday 18 October | 11:30 am–1:30 pm
Cine Zizanio: The Mirror of Our Humanity – Rediscovering Our Relationship with Animals
How do we perceive the world we share with other living beings? The relationship between humans and animals is one of the oldest and most complex relationships we have developed: a bond shaped by dependence and care, but also by power, exploitation, and contradictions. At times, animals become companions and friends; at others, they serve as a means of survival — and they often remain invisible as beings with their own needs, feelings, and rights.
Cine Zizanio turns its gaze towards this relationship, not to offer easy answers, but to explore it from different perspectives. The three films in the programme approach human-animal coexistence through a variety of cinematic tools: humour, allegory, realism, and the absurd.
Through the stories in this section, we explore the full spectrum of our coexistence with animals: from the innocent — and often persistent — childhood desire for care and companionship to the weight of responsibility towards farm animals. At the same time, we witness unexpected, almost surreal encounters between humans and animals, as well as extreme situations in which our very sense of morality and empathy is put to the test in our treatment of other creatures.
The films in this section invite us to look beyond the obvious. They go beyond the superficial message of animal welfare, offering a meaningful starting point for dialogue about empathy, the limits of our power, and what it truly means to coexist respectfully on the same planet.
The three short films in this section explore the theme through very different — yet equally fascinating — approaches:
Inhumanity, Nils Vleugels / Netherlands / 2023 / 15’
The Black Hen, Marion Clauzel / France / 2022 / 13’
The Goose, Jan Mika / Czech Republic–France / 2023 / 13’
The programme also features young filmmakers’ works from the Camera Zizanio film archive:
Sunny Days, Maxwell William Andrews / New Zealand / 10’ / 2025
The New Year’s Hero, Juvenile Referral Centre / Georgia / 2’ / 2023
Last Walk, Levi Numann / Netherlands / 3’ / 2022
Somewhere Only We Know, Erato Batoglou / Greece / 3’ / 2020
The programme is intended for children aged 8–12.
Olympia International Film Festival
The Olympia International Film Festival for Children and Young People was founded in 1997 and is based in Ilia, Greece. Since then, it has operated as an important platform for promoting cinema addressed to children and adolescents. At the same time, it supports children’s and youth creativity, offering a dynamic space for both expression and learning. Each year, the festival hosts films from all over the world that reflect the concerns, dreams, and challenges of children and young people. From short animation films to fiction features and documentaries, its program embraces a wide range of cinematic genres, with a strong emphasis on high-quality filmmaking. The Olympia Festival is a vibrant, living institution that highlights the power of cinema as an educational tool and a vehicle for social change, nurturing future generations of creators, cinephiles, and thoughtful citizens.
TICKETS
General Admission tickets 4 €, available at the Museum’s Ticket Desk and online in the system below.
Free admission for people with disabilities.
Due to technical issues, payments via IRIS are temporarily unavailable.
