Beginning November 13, ΕΜΣΤ inaugurates a new autumn season of CineFIX screenings in the Museum’s Mezzanine Screening Room, presenting a selection of films, videos, and audiovisual works that extend the success of its summer outdoor cinema programme.
TICKETS
General Admission tickets 4 €, available at the Museum’s Ticket Desk and online in the system below.
Free admission for people with disabilities.
Online pre-sale of tickets ends on the day of the screening at 17:00. After the end of the pre-sale, the remaining available tickets will be available at the Museum’s Ticket Desk:
Due to technical issues, payments via IRIS are temporarily unavailable.
JANUARY
Thursday 15 January | 20:00
No Animals
Rule 1: Never make a film with animals or children. And why not? Because it’s exhausting and time-consuming – obviously. And why? Because both animals and children live in different dimensions and worlds than adults, and when their worlds overlap, it’s according to the rules of the adults. That’s bound to clash. ‘Why Look at Animals?’ Precisely because they’re right. They have a right to their space, which we take away from them. They have a right to insist that we are annoying. They have a right to be seen, as who they are. A film programme beyond sentimental anthropomorphization.
With short films by Chris Marker, Matthias Müller & Christoph Girardet, Jeanette Muñoz, Kerstin Honeit, Evgenia Arbugaeva+ Maxim Arbugaev and Vergine Keaton. Selected and presented by Maike Mia Höhne, Artistic director at Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg.
Thursday 22 January
Essential Animals
An expanded cinema evening of 16mm film, video and live sound performance
Curated by Vassily Bourikas
A special night of screenings, programmed by independent film curator Vassily Bourikas.The works reflect a curated history of experimental cinema and video art, focusing on animals that unknowingly became part of an avant-garde canon. Spanning 111 years, presented in original -celluloid and analogue or digital video- formats, with live and recorded sounds, both optical and digital, Essential Animals is shaped as a single and double channel installational programme, compiled by Bourikas especially for Why Look at Animals?. It will be “performed” by three 16mm projectors and two video beamers on two different sets of screens and in two spaces.
Artists: Joseph Beuys & Helmut Wietz, Stan Brakhage, Christoph Girardet & Matthias Müller, Malcolm Le Grice (& Brian Eno, with original score on optical track), Georges Rey, Hans Richter (& Nika Son, with live score), Ladislas Starevich, Joyce Wieland and William Wegman & Man Ray (the dog, not the photographer)
Animals: Beetles, Birds, Cats, a Coyote, Cows, Dogs, Dragonflies, Fish, Grasshoppers, Horses, Humans, Moths, Rats and Man Ray (the dog, not the photographer).
Duration:
Screen 1 (Mezzanine): circa 90’ (Start time: 20:00, 12 short films, 16mm & video)
& Screen 2 (Screening Room, Mezzanine): circa 40’ (Showtimes: 18:00, 19:00, 20:00)
Vassily Bourikas has worked as a curator of film and moving-image art for more than 20 years. His collaborations include the Oberhausen Festival, the Viennale, the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, Arsenal, Documenta 14, and many others. He lives in Athens, where he works with EKΚOMEΔ (Τhe Hellenic Film and Audiovisual Centre) in the Department for the Development of Emerging Creators, and he is also a research associate at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in the field of Experimental Cinema.
DECEMBER
Thursday 11 December | 20:00
As part of the Public Programme for the current exhibition Why Look at Animals? A Case for the Rights of Non-Human Lives, CineFIX presents a special film evening featuring five new short films from Greece and abroad , in collaboration with the Drama International Short Film Festival. These works form a cinematic tribute to the relationship between humans and animals, challenging the dominant perception of non-human animals as commodities for human use and highlighting the intrinsic value of non-human life. From documentaries capturing the realities of non-human existence in technological and urban environments to fictional works exploring lyrical, ethical, and emotional entanglements, each film opens up a shared space for reflection on the worth of life beyond the human.
Leila Fatima Keita, Felix Klee
Accidental Animals, 2024
10′
Film School: University of Television and Film Munich
While cartographing the world, the Google Street View car sometimes crosses paths with animals. The film examines these encounters between the machine of technical reproduction and creatures like spiders, donkeys, or dogs.
Neritan Zinxhiria
Noi, 2025
15′
Revenge whispers: at what temperature does blood boil upon snow? When the older brother is killed by his beloved horse, the younger must decide—through nightmares and visions—whether to take the creature’s life or grant it forgiveness.
Lena Dandanelle, Carolin Kubut, Lea Majer
We Used to Be Friends , 2024
6′
For a long time they were an integral part of our society, today they live neglected in our cities and are deemed a problem. The pigeon is a relic of the past that still affects us today
Carlo Galbiati
Should Virtual Petz Die?, 2025
12′
Film School: Nouvelle Bug
After a computer crash, a girl struggles with the loss of her long-time virtual pet, Bubba.
Simon Schneckenburger
Skin on Skin, 2025
29′
Two men displaced in the hell of the German meat industry. Something lies between them. Something makes them dream again.
Total duration: 72′
Sunday 14 December | 17:00
Jerzy Skolimowski
EO, 2022
86′
CineFIX presents the film EO (2022) by Jerzy Skolimowski – winner of the Cannes Film Festival Jury Prize that year – a powerful and poetic drama that tells the life of a donkey, following its journey from a circus in Poland to the rural landscapes of Europe. The film invites the viewer to see the world through the donkey’s eyes — exposing both the kindness and the cruelty humans can inflict, and drawing attention to the vulnerability and dignity of non-human life.
Thursday 18 December | 20:00
SILENT NIGHT @EMΣΤ
CineFIX summons the jolly and not-so-jolly ghosts of Christmas Past for a merry and spooky evening sparkling with holiday magic and movie nostalgia. Join us on the Μuseum’s Μezzanine, where Christmas films from the silent era (c. 1910s-1920s) will flicker in a cozy environment, mulled wine will steam and be consumed, and festive cheer will fill the air!
J. Searle Dawley; Edwin S. Porter
A Little Girl Who Did Not Believe in Santa Claus, 1907
14′
Alan Crosland, Will Louis
Santa Claus vs. Cupid – A Christmas Story, 1915
16′
D.W. Griffith
ATrapforSanta, 1909
15’41”
Charles M. Seay, Frederic Arnold Kummer
The Adventure of the Wrong Santa Claus – An Adventure of Octavious – Amateur Detective, 1914
13’53”
D.D.Teoli Jr. A.C. & Mr and Mrs F. E. Kleinschmidt
Santa Claus – A Fantasy Actually Filmed in Northern Alaska, 1925
28′
J. Searle Dawley
A Christmas Carol, 1910
11′
Edwin S. Porter
The Night Before Christmas, 1905
8’43”
Total duration: 107′
All films: Public domain
NOVEMBER
Thursday 13 November | 20:00
Bill Viola
I Do Not Know What It Is I Am Like, 1986
89′
As part of the public programme of the exhibition Why Look at Animals? A Case for the Rights of Non-Human Lives, ΕΜΣΤ will screen one of the most significant video works by internationally renowned artist Bill Viola, I Do Not Know What It Is I Am Like (1986).
The work’s title derives from the Rig Veda, the Sanskrit spiritual text that charts a journey through birth, consciousness, primordial existence, intuition, knowledge, rational thought, and faith—culminating in a transcendent reality “beyond the laws of physics.” Through a sequence of powerful, emblematic images and allegorical passages, Viola stages a profound quest for self-knowledge achieved through an awareness of the Other, embodied here in a shamanistic vision of animal consciousness.
Structured in five parts—Il Corpo Scuro (The Dark Body), The Language of the Birds, The Night of Sense, Stunned by the Drum, and The Living Flame—the video unfolds as a metaphysical journey of rational and intuitive thought, from the natural world to spiritual ritual. Viola’s poetic exploration of subject and object, observer and observed, and his search for knowledge of the self, culminate in an indelible visual metaphor: the artist’s reflection in the pupil of an owl’s eye.
© Texts: Excerpted from the EAI Online Catalogue (http://www.eai.org) Edited by Lory Zippay
BIOGRAPHY
Bill Viola (1951-2024) was a pioneer in the fields of new media, video, and installation art. For over 50 years his visionary environments, defined by immersive video and soundscapes, focused on the fundamental human experiences of birth, death, and the unfolding of consciousness. Viola’s decelerated moving images shifted viewers’ sense of perception and awareness to reveal the inner states of awareness. Coming of age alongside the development of video, Viola experimented with the new technologies to explore expressive possibilities of this new medium. At the same time, through his study of the history of art and great masters, as well as research into cultural rituals all over the world, he came to realize that art can express true compassion striving to make work that embodied the concept of transformation. Viola played a key role in assuring video became a vital form of contemporary art.
Thursday 27 November | 20:00
Myth, Migration, Metamorphosis: Two films by Bryony Dunne
As part of the public programme for Why Look at Animals? A Case for the Rights of Non-Human Lives CineFIX is pleased to announce the screening of two recent films by Irish artist and filmmaker Bryony Dunne.
Dunne’s multidisciplinary practice — spanning documentary film, photography, and sculpture — investigates the complex entanglements between humanity and the natural world. Her work often addresses issues of cultural representation, colonial histories, and the ways in which humans attempt to interpret, frame, tame and control nature. The event will be introduced by EMΣΤ curator Daphne Vitali.
Killing the Messenger (2020)
11’
In ancient Greece, Manteis (diviners) interpreted bird behaviour as a source of guidance in times of crisis. Killing the Messenger draws a conceptual link between these historical practices and contemporary scientific research. Filmed on the remote island of Antikythera, the documentary follows a team of ornithologists studying migratory birds that pause on the island before crossing the Mediterranean Sea. The film highlights the role of birds as indicators of environmental change and ecological risk.
Surrender Your Horns (2022)
60’
In this hybrid documentary, a lonely Irishman undergoes a surreal, Kafkaesque transformation after inhaling powdered rhino horn, becoming a rhino-headed figure who is simultaneously hunter and hunted. Combining observational documentation with Theatre of the Absurd–inspired performance, Surrender Your Horns examines the complex cultural narratives surrounding the rhinoceros — from poaching and extinction to myth, desire, and the politics of consumption.
BIOGRAPHY
Bryony Dunne is an Irish visual artist and filmmaker whose work explores the intersections of cinema, photography, and ecology. Her films and installations have been presented at the Mosaic Rooms (London), the Irish Film Institute (Dublin), DEPO (Istanbul), and Townhouse Gallery (Cairo), among other venues. She has participated in numerous international film and video festivals, including the Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival (Greece), Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival (France), and Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin. Dunne is a former resident of the Jan van Eyck Academie (Maastricht) and the Onassis AiR programme (Athens).
