Jochen Sandig, a German director, cultural entrepreneur and founder of four cultural institutions in Berlin, Knight of Arts and Letters and a strong supporter of Eleusis candidacy for European Capital of Culture 2021 visited once again Eleusis for the realization of the his film project “Human Requiem”.
After the interactive performance entitled “Human Requiem”, a choreographic “physicalization” of Johannes Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem, a hymn to life and solidarity which Eleusis 2021 had the chance to enjoy during the Holy Week in the Music Hall of Athens, the director Jochen Sandig together with his team visited Eleusis. More specifically, the team came to Eleusis to create the film version of the performance “Human Requiem” in the archeological site of Eleusis along with the co-director David Hanneke, son of the famous director Michael Hanneke. Top performers like the soprano Marlis Petersen, the Greek baritone Dimitris Tiliakos and one of the best choral ensembles, the renowned Berlin Radio Choir came for two days in Eleusis to shoot the film project inside the archaeological site.
Jochen Sandig talking about Eleusis:
“… My first impulse was to make a film. But where to do? A filming of the concert was not enough for me, so I was looking a long time for the best place I could find. This place is Eleusis, where the ancient mysteries were celebrated. You know, I think Destiny led me to this place, because I have visited it many times and I believe that it is a holy place…”.
(from the interview to the journalist Yorgos Voudiklaris/propaganda.gr)
“We are living in very difficult times. Our world is in crisis and is full of mistrust, violence, war and terror. Our world needs humanity like never before. We must link our Ego and regain the control of We. We must relearn how to listen to each other. No other form of art can teach us this better than music, a universal language that overcomes the national, social and religious frontiers that are still dividing us. Our mortality is the hardest thing we have to learn, but on the same time it makes us all equal, like brothers. That’s why people, over thousand years, walked towards Eleusis along the Sacred Road: celebrating the beauty of life because they had accepted their mortality as part of human existence during the well-known Eleusinian Mysteries”.
(From the interview at the 360views magazine)
