LOCATION
Kulturhaus
DATE
29 MAR 2025 3:00 PM — 5.00 PM
Echoes of Energy: Transformation, Memory, and Resistance
Short Film Program from the Olhares do Mediterrâneo- Women Film Festival Archive (Lisbon)
Curated by Alexia Alexandropoulou
Energy moves through landscapes, bodies, and histories—shaping, erasing, and renewing our environment. The selected films engage with energy as a natural force, a site of displacement, and a memory embedded in urban space. Every film reflects on cycles of destruction and regeneration, inviting us to reconsider our connection to the environment, history, and the shifting geographies we live in. Together, they all form an interconnected dialogue about energy as both a force of continuity and rupture.
CHORUS CTHONIA
Chorus Cthonia listens to the earth’s wounded voice, offering a multi-species and ecofeminist perspective on planetary distress. Through a kaleidoscope of field recordings, synthesized soundscapes, and recycled imagery, the film becomes an act of reanimation—giving new energy to discarded materials, amplifying the unseen forces of the natural world, and asking how we might attune ourselves to the planet’s silent cries.
SANDJAK
In Sandjak, energy is traced through forced migration, mapping the journey of Armenians fleeing the annexation of Alexandretta in 1939. The film reveals how movement, loss, and adaptation shape the resilience of displaced communities. The past lingers like an afterimage, resonating with contemporary histories of exile and the urgent need for collective responsibility in times of crisis.
AS I OPEN MY EYES
In “As I Open My Eyes”, energy manifests in the transformation of Cairo. A filmmaker searches for a lost urban landscape, navigating the layers of change that have reshaped a once-familiar space. The film becomes a meditation on the way cities breathe and evolve, questioning how memory resists or fades within the relentless flow of modernization.
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Chantal Partamian
SANDJAK
Lebanon 2021
9’
SYNOPSIS
In 1939, following an agreement signed by France, the Alexandretta Sandjak in Syria was annexed to Turkey. Thousands of Armenians, including her grandmother, flee Alexandretta for Aleppo or Beirut. In the fall of 1939, a small number moved inland to an already established “quarantine” zone near Burj Hammoud, which at the time was farmland. The camp takes the name of their homeland, Sandjak.
BIO
Chantal Partamian is an experimental filmmaker and archivist with a focus on super 8mm and found footage. Her films, recognized and awarded at numerous festivals, are distributed through Vidéographe, Groupe Intervention Vidéo (GIV), and the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Center.
As an archivist, Partamian specializes in preserving and restoring film reels from the Eastern Mediterranean through the project: Katsakh Mediterranean Archives, while also conducting research on archival practices in conflict zones. Her written works are primarily published in the Revue Hors-Champ. Chantal Partamian’s work spans both the artistic and archival realms, merging experimental cinema with preservation efforts to safeguard the cultural heritage of the Mediterranean region.
Ghazzal Abdullah
ASI OPEN MY EYES
Egypt 2024
8’
SYNOPSIS
As Cairo undergoes dramatic urban transformations, the filmmaker embarks on a journey through the city in search of the remnants of the world she once knew. As she moves through the chaos and the changing landmarks, her memory of the place fades and disappears. She tries to hold on to those memories threatened by change. Yet, she becomes lost amidst the fragmented memories, turning her journey into a poetic exploration of identity and belonging, revealing the delicate balance between identity and place.
BIO
Cairo-based Ghazzal Abdullah is a filmmaker and multidisciplinary artist who graduated from the Faculty of Applied Arts in 2021. Abdullah has actively participated in renowned workshops like the Between Women Filmmakers Caravan, Heya Fel Cinema, and the Studio Khana for Contemporary Art and Cultural Development Program. Abdullah’s artistic practice is based on experimentation and research.
Anat Moss
CHORUS CTHONIA
Spain 2022
13’
SYNOPSIS
Chorus Cthonia – the chthonic choir – is an experimental sound-visual tale about our wounded planet, from a multispecies and ecofeminist point of view. “It matters what stories make worlds, what worlds make stories.” (Donna Haraway) The video is a sound work composed of field recordings and synthesizers, interpreted with projections (VJ) of original animations and recycled videos.
BIO
Anat Moss is a multidisciplinary new-media artist, creating installations, sound works, live audiovisual performances and experimental animations. Her practice, Electropaganism, is rooted in themes of feminism, ecology and spirituality. Member of ReFluxus, international women’s collective of sound art. She holds a Master’s degree in Technological and Performative Contemporary Art at UPV/EHU (Bilbao, 2022), and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Animation at Bezalel Academy (Jerusalem, 2018).