In the context of its public programme, ΕΜΣΤ presents ORFEAS2021 by FYTA, a video-opera based on L’Orfeo by Claudio Monteverdi, with additional music by Andriana Minou, Alexandros Drosos and Fil Ieropoulos. Following the screening, there will be a discussion with film theorist Rea Wallden, musicologist Dana Papachristou and the artists.
ORFEAS2021 retells the myth of Orpheus in the immediate future, when the first openly gay prime minister of Greece struggles to maintain the legacy of LGBTQ movements while facing dilemmas such as revolution or reformism.
Oscillating between operatic melodrama, queer DIY collage, the ghosts of the 80s era and the aesthetic of virtual reality, the film reflects political purity, alternative histories, institutional criticism and identity politics, while posing the question if a work of art can be queer.
The opera is influenced by and dedicated to the memory of Zak Kostopoulos / Zackie Oh, a queer performer and activist, murdered in 2018 in the centre of Athens.
The video-opera ORFEAS2021 by FYTA is a production of the Greek National Opera.
Coordanation: Stamatis Schizakis
PARTICIPANTS
FYTA is an artistic duo, working with performance, consisting of Fil Ieropoulos and Foivos Dousos. Since 2012 they have participated in a number of events as performers, but also as curators. They were founding members of the queer music label Fytini (with over 30 releases), the performance art platform Sound Acts (presenting the work of 80+ artists in Athens), as well as various other projects within the Athenian queer art scene. They have collaborated amongst others with the Athens School of Fine Arts, ATOPOS cvc in Athens, Freud Museum in London, Athens Biennale, while their texts and papers have been presented in academic spaces in Greece and Europe.
Rea Walldén is filmmaker, film theorist and Assistant Professor in the Department of Digital Arts and Cinema of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. Her research interests include avant-garde and experimental cinema, film education. She has also taught in the Athens School of Fine Arts, the Film School of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Hellenic Open University, University of Thessaly, and other academic institutions. She has directed experimental short films and has exhibited visual art works. She has co-written the script for the feature film “Thief or Reality” (2001) by Antoinetta Angelidi, which has been screened at international film festivals and museums. She has just completed her feature-length documentary “Obsessive Hours at the Topos of Reality”.
Dana Papachristou is a doctor of aesthetics, artist, musicologist and art theorist. She studied music in the Hellenic Conservatory and musicology in the Kapodistrian University of Athens. She is currently teaching in the dept. of Culture, Creative media and Industries at the University of Thessaly. She has been involved in interdisciplinary projects on contemporary music, sound composition and the relationship between sound and other artistic forms, and has participated in many visual, sound and geo-locative projects in Greece and abroad. She is a founding member of Akoo.o artistic team and the research centre To Aesthate. She has composed experimental works, as well as music for theatre, dance and cinema.
ACCESS
Entry is free with admission tickets that will be distributed on a first-come first-served basis half an hour before the event.
The film will be presented in Greek with English subtitles.
The duration of the film is 110′.
PHOTOGRAPHS
VIDEO-OPERA PRODUCTION
The video-opera ORFEAS2021 by FYTA is a production of the Greek National Opera.
