Following its premiere at Critics' Week, the parallel competition section of the 75th Cannes Film Festival, Futuristic sci-fi short film by Evi Kalogeropoulou, «On the Throne of Xerxes,» starring Giorgos Mazonakis in the lead role., commissioned and produced by Onassis Culture, wins the prestigious Canal+ Award for short film. Canal+ awarded the prize, which also includes a cash prize, to the film «On the Throne of Xerxes» for its approach to an ancient Greek story with parables that spring up in an extremely inventive way in an otherworldly landscape.
Alain Kruger, journalist and presenter of the Cercle program on Canal+, Alain Kruger, compared Evi Kalogeropoulou and her work to the great French director Claire Denis and the film «Beau travail» and urged the audience to see the film. Evi Kalogeropoulou, herself a great admirer of Denis's work, was moved as she accepted the award and warmly thanked the Onassis Foundation for the commission and its support, as well as her collaborators, Aphrodite Panagiotakou, Director of Culture at the Onassis Foundation, who was the film's artistic supervisor, and Giorgos Mazonakis, who plays the lead role. The film will be shown on the major French television network Canal+, which highlights the work of great filmmakers from around the world.
The film, an enigmatic dystopia where the visual subjugates the emotional, set against the backdrop of a shipyard in Perama, was presented in its first version (entitled «I Belong to Myself») at the «You and AI: Through the Algorithmic Lens» Festival (24.06-25.07.21) held by Stegi at Pedion tou Areos, under the artistic supervision of Aphrodite Panagiotakou. The film was shot at Hellenic Shipyards SA in Perama in June 2021.
Visual artist and director Evi Kalogeropoulou has linked her film career to the Cannes Film Festival. Specifically, in 2020, her short film «Motorway 65» participated in the festival's official program, competing for the Palme d'Or. Last year, her feature-length film project «Cora,» which is currently in development and part of a Greek Film Centre funding programme, won an award at the Cannes Film Festival's L'Atelier.
At yesterday's screening of the film in Cannes, Giorgos Mazonakis thanked Evi Kalogeropoulou for giving him the opportunity to transform himself into a movie star and Aphrodite Panagiotakou, who was the artistic director. Aphrodite Panagiotakou, Director of Culture at the Onassis Foundation, said: «We are very proud of this remarkable woman and we know how much effort it takes for a filmmaker to create. We are very happy to have brought together people from different walks of life, such as Giorgos Mazonakis, who is a famous singer and is not supposed to come from the upper echelons of culture, but in a way he does, while Evi Kalogeropoulou is someone who knows that when something is good, it works. The fact that we are here today means that this meeting went as we had hoped.».
In «The Throne of Xerxes,» Kalogeropoulou's gaze, as in «Motorway 65,» is directed towards the edges of the wider urban landscape of Athens, specifically the ship repair zone of Perama—the sea where Xerxes lost his fleet—which appears as a dystopian backdrop for today's alienated people. The screenplay is by Giorgos Telzidis, the music by Kid Moxie, the cinematography by Evan Maragoudakis, the editing by Giorgos Zafeiris, and the set design by Evelina Darzenta and Anna Zotou. Alongside Giorgos Mazonakis are Angela Brouskou, Myrto Kontoni, Xenia Dania, Lorenzo Sarzan, Kevin Zans Ansong, Jordan Genidogan, and Vasilis Koutsogiannis. Production: Neda Film.
A few words about the film
In the dystopian working environment of the Perama shipyards, the chronic prohibition of physical contact has transformed human interactions into uncanny simulations of a stifled sensuality that transcends heteronormative stereotypes of desire. Under the suspicion of the existence of an omnipresent but invisible control mechanism, we follow the narrative of Giorgos, the oldest worker and manager at the shipyard, sketching human relationships as they are shaped in an Orwellian everyday life where the visual subjugates the emotional.
Once a month, George makes the journey from Perama, opposite Salamina. He, like the young workers, looks at the mountain of Perama, opposite, without knowing what to expect or what to do.
One of the peaks of Mount Aigaleo, which is part of the municipality of Perama and was called Amfiali in ancient times, is believed to be the spot from which Xerxes watched the defeat of the Persian fleet at the Battle of Salamis in 480 BC. in 480 BC. This peak is called «Xerxes» Throne« by the locals. As if she were in the same spot, Kalogeropoulou watches her heroes from a distance. She places them »on the throne" defined by each one's microcosm—whether it is a heavy automated machine or a metal scaffold—all of them confined and observers of a dystopian universe and a grim ritual that suppresses human desire.
In her film, Kalogeropoulou chooses to talk about the human body, beauty, the futility of work, the conditions of paranoid surveillance, but also about blood and separation, gender, sexual desire, and its limits.
The role of Giorgos Mazonakis appears both enigmatic and autobiographical. Enigmatic, in terms of whether he is human or machine? Where does he come from and why is he ultimately able to break such a deeply rooted rule of repression? What kind of eroticism does he exude? Autobiographical, as the Greek performer returns to Perama and his father's workplace.
