A flock of birds circles and moves a cage vehicle, seeking escape from a city half finished and abandoned, with roads interrupted by fragments of fallen statues.
Apodemy
2012Apodemy from Katerina Athanasopoulou on Vimeo.
Commissioned by The Onassis Cultural Center on the theme of Emigration for Visual Dialogues 2012Plato likens the human soul with a cage, where knowledge is birds flying. We’re born with the cage empty and, as we grow, we collect birds and they go in the cage for future use. When we need to access knowledge we put our hand in the cage, hunt for a bird – and sometimes catch the wrong one.
Ornithology uses the term “Zugunruhe” to describe the turbulent behaviour of birds before they migrate, whether free or caged.
These two images, birds inhabiting the human soul and the distress of the migrating bird became the starting points for this film, commissioned on the theme of Emigration.
A flock of birds circles and moves a cage vehicle, seeking escape from a city half finished and abandoned, with roads interrupted by fragments of fallen statues. Those hands are simultaneously the pursuit of knowledge and also the heroes/leaders of the past that we have rejected but are still haunting us.
In a time when Europe seems to be imploding, this is my portrait of Athens.
Credits
A film by Katerina Athanasopoulou
Original Music by Jon Opstad
Violin: Claire Wheeler
Commisioned by the Onassis Cultural Center for Visual Dialogues 2012
Awards
Winner of the Lumen Prize 2013
Finalist, Best Commissioned Animation, British Animation Awards 2014
Best Animation, London Greek Film Festival, October 2013
Special Mention for a Greek Film, Animasyros International Festival, Greece, September 2013
Nominated for the Peer Raben Music Award at SoundTrack_Cologne 10, Germany 2013
Screenings
Filmessay at Archine, Brazil, 2016
Filmessay/E.V.A at Paris College of Art, France, 2016
E.V.A (Experimental Video Architecture), Venice Architecture Biennale, 2016
Special Screening, Strangloscope Video Art Festival, Brazil, December 2014
Lumen Show at the Onassis Cultural Center, Athens, November 2014
Festival Miden, Greece, July 2014
The Queen of Hungary, Landscape: Dislocation /Space / Place, UK, May 2014.
Public Choice Awards Screening, British Animation Awards, BFI, February 2014
London Short Film Festival, January 2014
Winter Shuffle, London, December 2013
Aesthetica Short Film Festival, York, November 2013
Underwire Festival, London, November 2013
KLIK! Amsterdam Animation Festival, Holland, November 2013
Shnit International Short film festival, Switzerland, October 2013
Belo Horizonte International Film Festival, Brazil, September 2013
Animasyros Festival, Greece, September 2013
The Queen of Hungary, Landscape: Dislocation /Space / Place, UK, Spring 2014.
Femina Film Festival, Brazil, July 2013
Athens Video Art Festival, Athens, June 2013
Hong Kong Art Fair, Animation Club Screening, May 2013
MAshRome Film Fest, Rome, May 2013
60th Belgrade Documentary and Short Film Festival, Serbia, April 2013
Skepto International Film Festival, Sardinia, April 2013
Holland Animation Festival, Utrecht, March 2013
Flatpack Festival, Birmingham Museum & Gallery, UK, March 2013
Visual Dialogues (Installation), Plato's Academy Park, December 2012 - February 2013