ETERNAL STORIES | ΑΙΩΝΙΕΣ ΙΣΤΟΡΙΕΣ
Staged Reading, Animation and Greek Myth
Premiere: 26 September 2026 | Hamhi Printmaking Museum | 8pm
Theatre and animation meet ancient literature in Eternal Stories
Eternal Stories | Αιώνιες Ιστορίες is a hybrid staged reading that combines live performances of excerpts from ancient Greek and Roman literature with screenings of five award-winning animated films.
At the heart of the project is a dialogue between the original texts and their contemporary audiovisual representations through the subversive possibilities of animation. Four actors perform selected excerpts from the ancient sources, while the corresponding animated films offer their own, often unexpected, interpretations of the same mythological stories.
The project is presented in two self-contained parts, each forming a complete theatrical composition. Together, however, they offer a broader view of the different ways in which ancient mythological material is transformed through contemporary moving-image art.
PART I: LOVE — 26 & 28 September
Iliad – ACHILLES · Alcestis/Symposium – ALCESTIS · Metamorphoses – TIRESIAS
PART II: SUBVERSION — 27 & 29 September
Electra – ELECTRA · Argonautica – HARPYА · Bonus Presentation
PART I: LOVE — 26 & 28 September
With Love as their common theme, in all its different forms, the following films are presented alongside ancient sources:
Homer’s Iliad — Barry Purves’ Achilles
Homer’s Iliad meets Barry Purves’ Achilles (1995), a film that explores the human dimension of Achilles through his relationship with Patroclus. The heroic figure is reframed through vulnerability, desire, loss and trauma.
Euripides’ Alcestis, Plato’s Symposium — Lewis Klahr’s Alcestis
The myth of Alcestis, as it appears across different ancient sources, meets Lewis Klahr’s Alcestis (2021), a collage film that returns to the story of the woman who chooses to die in place of her husband and explores, through its visual composition, what the ancient narrative leaves unsaid.
Ovid’s Metamorphoses — Ann Marie Fleming’s Tiresias
Ovid’s Metamorphoses enters into dialogue with Ann Marie Fleming’s Tiresias (1998), inspired by the story of Tiresias, who experienced transformation from man to woman and back again. With humour and a subversive spirit, the film turns this extraordinary mythological experience into a commentary on gender stereotypes and the expectations imposed on the body and on social roles.
PART II: SUBVERSION — 27 & 29 September
With a common focus on a subversive perspective on mythological material, the following films are presented alongside ancient sources:
Euripides’ Electra — Daria Kashcheeva’s Electra
The myth of Electra, as explored through Euripides’ Electra, enters into dialogue with Daria Kashcheeva’s Electra (2023), Best International Short Film, Toronto Theatre Festival 2023. The film combines live action, animation and Barbie dolls, approaching the myth through the perspective of childhood, memory, repression and the complex relationship between daughter and father.
Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica — Raoul Servais’ Harpya
Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica meets Raoul Servais’ legendary Harpya, winner of the Palme d’Or for Best Short Film at the Cannes Film Festival in 1979. With its surreal irony and dark poetic quality, the film returns to the myth of Phineus and the Harpies, transforming the mythological material through a distinctive cinematic language.
Bonus Presentation
An unexpected finale…
Each of the five films, pioneering in its own time, uses different techniques and aesthetics to reinterpret ancient mythological material.
Surrealism, collage, stop-motion, live action, puppets and other forms of moving-image art create five different approaches to the ancient stories. Each film shifts the gaze, changes the perspective and reveals different facets of the same myths.
In their encounter with the ancient texts, themes emerge that continue to concern us today: heroes and anti-heroes, family conflicts, self-sacrifice, transformation, gender and identity, memory and trauma.
Eternal Stories is addressed to a broad audience: theatre-goers and readers of ancient literature, students and researchers in theatre, classics and audiovisual studies, theatre and film practitioners, as well as audiences interested in animation and contemporary forms of storytelling.
The project offers an experience in which the immediacy of live theatrical performance meets the aesthetic freedom and accessibility of moving-image art.
Why do ancient myths continue to return?
Because every age reads them differently.
And every new reading adds another piece to the vast, ever-changing mosaic of our relationship with antiquity.
Every age speaks through myth in order to speak about itself.
CREDITS
Direction – Dramaturgy:
Magdalena Zira
Film Selection:
Chris Robinson, Magdalena Zira
Artistic Design of the Space – Poster:
Yiorgos Tsangaris
Lighting – Technical Support:
Giorgos Yianni Tsaggaris
Cast (in alphabetical order):
Sofia Kalli
Kyveli Papantoniou
Lucia Pieridou
Niovi Charalambous
Production:
Fantastico Theatro
In collaboration with:
Animafest Cyprus
Supported by:
Department of Contemporary Culture, Deputy Ministry of Education and Culture
INFORMATION
Dates: 26, 27, 28, 29 September 2026
Venue: Hambis Municipal Printmaking Museum, Nicosia, 55–59 Ammochostou Street
Time: 8pm
Tickets / Bookings:
more.com/cy – Eternal Stories tickets
