The sci-fi video-opera by ΦΥΤΑ is celebrating its official cinema premiere in Athens after a sold-out world premiere at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, where it competed in the International Competition >>Film Forward, The screening will be followed by a Q&A with FYTA and the creators of the film.
The struggles of Orfeas, the first gay prime minister of Greece, against a history of oppression in the “land of heroes”. The first queer opera in Greek, a post-modern experimental work, oscillating between baroque melodrama, DIY collage, post-internet and VR/AI aesthetics. The film is dedicated to the memory of activist “Zackie Oh!”
A retro-futurist story of utopian politics, ideological conflicts, supernatural leaders and totalitarian spectacle. Cyberpunk queer pirates against rainbow homo-capitalist normies. Revolution vs reformism; logic vs affect. The trappings of post-internet identity politics through a contemporary take of the myth of Orpheus.
The first gay prime minister of Greece struggles to carry the legacy of LGBT history at a time of post-truth alt-right dystopia. The mysterious algorithm of the collective unconscious and heavy-handed tradition of “the land of heroes” proves unshakable. Will liberal Europe and its so-called ‘freedom of speech’ provide an alternative or is it just another platform for neo-reactionary culture wars?
Oscillating between operatic melodrama, queer DIY collage, 80s-inspired post-trash hauntology and VR/AI aesthetics, the film creates a kaleidoscopic take on political purity, alternative histories and institutional critique. The synthetic consciousness of techno-utopian inevitability seems to have transformed from post-human complexity to deepfake apocalypse. In the end, melancholy, trauma and despair are the only remnants (and perhaps weapons) on the bruised body of political movements.
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.
A Greek National Opera production
www.orfeas2021.com
Jan. 19 & 26, 2022 – 21.30
Duration: 111 mins
Tickets: €7 / €5 (concession)
Pre-sale from January 13th 2021 at the box office of the Greek Film Archive
The film will be screened with English subtitles