Film still from Elise Kermani: Without Fame (Antiklea) (2024). Courtesy the artist.
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Filmmaker Elise Kermani presents the New York premiere of her latest short performance film, Without Fame (Antiklea), as well as three of her earlier works including SAND - a migrating performance, Agamemnon’s Daughter, and JUSTICE.
The evening will conclude with a Q&A with the filmmaker and audience.
PROGRAM
Without Fame (Antiklea) (2024), 8 min
Without Fame (Antiklea) centers on a tragic figure who is often forgotten amidst talk of Homer’s Odyssey, Antiklea, the mother of Odysseus. Although she is technically a minor character when compared to her famous wandering son (Antiklea literally means ‘without fame’ in ancient Greek), she is living proof of how a mother’s life can diminish once her child goes away. The film was shot in Malibu, CA and produced by Illium Pictures in Los Angeles, with cinematography by Kaliya Warren and featuring actor Chivonne Michelle. In May 2024, Without Fame showed at the AGON International Archaeological Film Festival in Athens, Greece, and was one of 63 films from 24 countries selected from 1,250 submissions from 100 countries, and one of only two films selected from the US.
While Kermani’s film takes its inspiration from Book XI of Homer’s Odyssey (including voiceover in the original ancient Greek), the film honors the moments before and after Odysseus meets his mother in Hades — and when she is left alone. “What destiny brought you to the home of Death?” he asks her in the text. In a translation by Alexander Pope, Antiklea’s response is, “For thee, I lived — for absent, I expired!” “Without Fame” also features “Tzivaeri,” a traditional Greek song whose title translates to ‘my treasure,’ and whose inclusion is meant to be a call of adoration from a mother to her child. Kermani first heard the song on a trip to Greece 10 years ago, and knew she had to use it in a film.
Without Fame also combines aspects of modern life with these mythological proceedings. In making it, Kermani was thinking a lot about the increasing number of migrants who’ve perished on the shores of Greece after attempting perilous boat trips across the ocean. They're fleeing to Europe in hopes of finding a better life. But many of these people end up with no identities — they are buried as unknowns, and most families will never learn what happened to their loved ones. That is why Kermani chose to begin the film with Antiklea washed up on a desolate beach; she is so often forgotten, too.
SAND - a migrating performance (2019), 12 min
Choreography and performances by Kristina Isabelle. Shot along the southern shores of Lake Michigan, with four dancers and a puppet. Cinematography by Diana Quiñones Rivera.
Agamemnon’s Daughter (2016), 4 min
Choreography and solo performance by Laurel Jenkins, 4 mins. Shot in Malibu, CA. Cinematography by Alexander Chinnici.
JUSTICE (2028), 12 min
A site specific performance with musicians and dancers filmed in NYC's Riverside Park on the Summer Solstice, 2017. With choreography and performance by Christine Elmo. Cinematography by Kaliya Warren.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Elise Kermani, currently based out of Northwest Indiana, is Managing Director of the Dunes Arts Foundation, located in Michigan City, IN. She is also Adjunct Lecturer of Media Art at Empire State University in New York. Heavily influenced by European theatrical video art, Kermani is primarily interested in adapting classic material and crafting her own unique, modernized interpretations; her projects consistently feature strong elements of music and dance. Particularly prevalent in the work is the idea of collage; not necessarily two-dimensional collage, but the layering of time itself, expanding a story back into the past and also forward into the present. Using varying levels of sound and fragmented visuals to comprise diverse, experimental performance pieces, Kermani aims to evoke a trance-like state – hypnotizing and even submerging a viewer within a strange new world. The music (much of which is sound designed by Kermani herself) is post-modern, emerging as a kaleidoscope of noise, a comingling of every kind of sound imaginable.