Reflective Encounters

“A workplace where touching is entirely forbidden: not uncommon during the height of the pandemic. But in this Greek shipyard, the workers have continued to keep to these rules as other workplaces dropped restrictions. Silent and implacable, these figures steadfastly go about their jobs, the lack of human contact apparently no barrier to them. The human form is front and centre here, with director Evi Kalogiropoulou composing images so as to highlight the physical qualities of her actors – often framing sweaty brows and bulging forceps against the angular coldness of scaffolding and various industrial ephemera. All of this is watched over by the attentive eyes of the protagonist (Greek pop star Yorgos Mazonakis, whose rugged face and grizzled visage has a gravitas all of its own).

Drones surveying the workplace speak to a larger cultural shift where intimacy is constantly under the microscope of distant beings searching for productivity at all costs. But rather than taking to polemics, On Xerxes’ Throne takes a much more ambiguous, existential tone, seeking to push beyond the structural ideology that governs workplace politics. The arrival of two new employees at the shipyard unsettles the group, but also hints towards a radical new future of liberty and freedom.”

— Fedor Tot