SATURDAY 16 DECEMBER 2023
CANTEEN ART HUB
11:00-15:00
MYSTERY 156
ELEFSINA STORIES
ELEFSINA 2083
Educational Programme for Teenagers
SUMMARY
The workshop “Elefsina 2083” turns its gaze to the future, inspired by the past. Participants will take a tour of the city,
photographing archaeological sites, the Sacred Way, the shipyard with its magnificent shipwrecks, and the
buildings of the previous century, in order to redefine the concept of a monument. What changes have
they noticed over time and how do they imagine the monuments of the future will look like? With the images they will record and the objects they will collect during the tour as their starting point, they will use collage and printmaking techniques to depict a utopian futuristic Elefsina. They will then digitally manipulate the images created, adding elements of typography, to produce a series of brochures for an archaeology of the future. The whole process will be recorded in the form of a short documentary.
17:00
QUEEN WITHOUT LAND
ASGEIR HELGESTAD
(2018, 95΄)
SUMMARY
The true story of the relationship between Frost, a polar bear, and a wildlife filmmaker, documenting how climate change is affecting the lives of everyone living in the Svalbard Archipelago.
Mystery 149
TRANSITION TO A CLIMATE-NEUTRAL FUTURE
MARIA LEONIDA
(2023, 17΄)
SUMMARY
In May 2023, students from seven European countries met in Elefsina to participate in a unique meeting Mystery 149 Pupil Conference: Transition to a Climate-Neutral Future, with the main objective of familiarising themselves with processes of participatory consultation and the experience of environmental walks. Through this audiovisual document-recording, we remember those days of celebration.
CINE ELEUSIS
Central Hall
15:00-17:00
Masterclass
MENELAOS KARAMAGHIOLIS
“The moving image as a starting point for actions with social impact”
17:00
MYSTERY 69 GREEKIES
MENELAOS KARAMAGHIOLIS – DØCUMATISM
Premiere
(2023, 90΄)
SUMMARY
The cinematic depiction of unknown and invisible places, stories, and heroes becomes the starting point for a multimedia project that activates key social issues through in-situ artistic events (visual arts, music, dance, video) in hard-to-reach spaces, with screenings and public actions that provide a platform for vulnerable social groups. The core of Mystery 69 Greekies are the abandoned and injured strays in the wider area of the Thriasian Plain – who are extremely popular for adoption abroad despite their obvious disabilities: the Greekies. The term takes on an allegorical meaning by including anyone who feels isolated or abandoned. In preparation for the filming and screening of the Greekies, on-site public activities bring stray spaces to life through stray films with stray heroes. These activities are filmed and an audiovisual archive is created.
20:00
THE WHEAT ON THE SHIRT
YIANNIS KANAKIS, YIANNIS PANAYIOTARAKOS & ANNA PSARRA
(2023, 48΄)
SUMMARY
“The founding of Panelefsiniakos Sports Club was an event of extraordinary political and cultural significance in Elefsina, a town scarred by social conflict. Sports transform underlying aggression into something else, that produces joy.” These words of Michail Marmarinos, General Artistic Director of 2023 Eleusis Cultural Capital of Europe, capture the social role that Panelefsiniakos has played since its creation in 1931. The Club has offered a remarkable meeting and mingling space. The football team, and later the track sports and basketball, have marked the trajectory of a working-class town which, in a span of 150 years, has produced blends of social, economic and political history that are often unique. Through interviews with older and younger athletes, executives and friends of the Club, the film traces the ties of Panelefsiniakos with the past and present of Elefsina. And it suggests that Panelefsiniakos can continue to play an important social role in the future.
21:00
THE ELEUSINIANS
FILIPPOS KOUTSAFTIS
(2023, 99΄)
SUMMARY
The new film by Filippos Koutsaftis is a cinematic mosaic that attempts to assemble the dynamic portrait of Elefsina through snapshots of everyday life, oblique glances at the historical past of the city, from antiquity to the 20th century and, above all, the micro-histories that the director has compiled, collecting testimonies from residents about their life in Elefsina and their particular relationship with the city. Thus, the portrait of Elefsina appears as a sum of individual portraits and the term “anthropogeography” takes on an almost literal dimension, in that the city is essentially composed of its citizens, prominent, and anonymous, past and present, living and dead.
The foundation for the project consists of more than 80 hours of archival material, which the director acquired during the shooting of his first film about Elefsina, Agelastos Petra, over a period of twelve years, from 1988 to 2000. To this material – an expression of nativeness and a reservoir of cultural memory – new elements collected by the filmmaker in the 21st century have been added, with testimonies of younger residents and images depicting the tectonic changes that have occurred in the character of Elefsina over time.
The creative interweaving of timelessness and synchronicity sets the tone for the whole film (which is constantly in progress, like Elefsina itself), whether on the micro level, with testimonies of old and young residents and images of everyday life, or on the macro level, with reflections and snapshots that shed light on the cultural heritage and local history, as well as on the developments gradually shaping the new character of the city and bringing about decisive changes in the conditions and lifestyle of its inhabitants.
Taking the Eleusinian Mysteries as a discreet but perceptible and persistent reference point, utilising their universal implications and existential extensions, Filippos Koutsaftis ultimately attempts to extrapolate and transcribe his material into an ontological horizon of reference, so that the portrait of the concrete and historical Elefsina is at the same time a portrait of a marginally symbolic and visionary Elefsina, a city that transcends geographical boundaries and constitutes the spiritual capital of the European and the Western world in general.
Lounge – Small Screens
20:00-00:00
SMALL SCREEN 1 | MYSTERIES: ONE YEAR IN ONE HOUR
SUMMARY
Can just one screen fit all the Mysteries of an entire year? The following Mysteries appear – rawly and randomly: Mystery 3 Elefsina Mon Amour, Mystery 16 Τogether! A Circus Invitation, Mystery 19 Visual Arts Initiator III – But Don’t Tell Anyone, Mystery 20 Performing Arts Initiator –Narrative Archaeology, Mystery 34 Faces of Elefsina, Mystery 38 Music From the Inside, Mystery 42 Futuring Waters, Mystery 43 School of Waves and Weeds, Mystery 48 Constellations, Mystery 57 Climbing Over Elefsina – Revisiting the Landscapes of Elefsina, Mystery 60 metamorphoSEA, Mystery 62 Nuits de Lenteur – À Propos du Temps, Mystery 69 Greekies, Mystery 73 Cinema Paradise: Industries of Coexistence, Mystery 76 Don’t Look Back, Mystery 89 Elefsina by Night, Mystery 91 Magnetic Dance, Mystery 99 The Ark, Mystery 100 Sacred Songs, Mystery 106 Chamomile – Transit, Mystery 109 The Higgs Particle, Mystery 113 A Celebration to Change the World, Mystery 114 Everything Open, Mystery 115 Big and Small Ships, Mystery 118 Through Rupture Comes the Flow, Mystery 119 Humanosphère, Mystery 127 Horses in Love, Mystery 128 Crows, Mystery 132 Sky Above Elefsina, Mystery 134 Persephone, the Red Carpet, Mystery 139 Alienation, Mystery 140 Blind Guide, Mystery 142 Oh So Now Eleusis Is Growing Wheat!, Mystery 154 Live Music Acts, Mystery 166 State of Emergency, Mystery 168 Mobile Solar Cinema, Mystery 182 Sunday’s ADVENT, Mystery 183 Apothéri Project: An Experimental Contemporary Street Festival, Mystery 189 Myths and Legends of Elefsina: The Mysteries of Clay, Mystery 200 Mythological Gardens, Mystery 299 How to Change our Mind to Change the World.
SMALL SCREEN 2 | MYSTAE: THE ELEFSINIANS PARTICIPATE
Throughout these years, there have been projects that have traversed the Elefsinian and wider Thriasian Plain, opening up to their local communities, exchanging thoughts and ideas, gradually and steadily creating new ceremonial ways of dealing with reality. From the colourful mosaic of Elefsina to the rural communities of Aspropyrgos and the manufacturing centres of Megara, a network of mystae [initiates] began to set up and operate in West Attica. These are some of the most defining moments in their formation, always committed – and therefore decisive – to the realisation of the artistic vision of 2023 Eleusis.
SMALL SCREEN 3 | DEMYSTIFICATIONS: THE CREATORS IN THE LIGHT
Some of the most renowned and acclaimed contemporary creators came to Elefsina, experienced the energy of the place, and presented their works as confessions of this experience. The third section is dedicated to these testimonies. The following individuals and collectives stand before the lens of Pantelis Ladas and Aggeliki Nikolari: Patricia Apergi and the six choreographers from the Academy of Choreography, Beforelight, Romeo Castellucci, Eleftheria Deko and the Dancetheater company, Marina Fokidi, Panos Giannikopoulos, Katerina Gregos, Gemma Hanson, Yannis Houvardas, Lampros Liavas, Yolanta Markopoulou, Sasha Waltz & Jochen Sandig, Iannis Zannos, and the visual artists from V.A. Initiator (Vlad Brâteanu, James Bridle, Athina Koumparouli, Esmeralda Momferatou, Susan Philipsz, Angelo Plessas, Yorgos Sapountzis, Flavia Stagi, Heidi Voet, Alexander Wolframm).
OLD ORFEAS MOVIE THEATRE
17:00-21:00
MYSTERY 110 ORFEAS
EVA STEFANI
(art installation)
A work in the window of the old Orpheas cinema, next to the archaeological site of Elefsina. A story through broken images about man’s transition from darkness to light. Man alone, facing the inevitability of death and the inevitability of life. While wandering, he strives to free the soul from matter.
