Many Different Histories: National Identity and Collective Memory in the works of Maria Anastassiou and Eva Stefani

Thursday 07 Nov 2024

The program “Many Different Histories” presents two films: Acropolis (2001/2004) by Greek visual artist and documentary filmmaker Eva Stefani and Notes Remembered and Found (2024) by Cypriot artist/filmmaker Maria Anastassiou. The two films use the archive and the materiality of analogue film to critically examine pillars of Greek and Greek Cypriot national identity and collective memory. Through women’s voices, writings, experiences and bodies, the filmmakers negotiate questions not of a singular continuous history, but of “many different histories”, who tells them, how their repetitions and iterations change perceived perceptions of the past and what they might transfer to generations to come. Followed by a conversation with film curator Gareth Evans and director Maria Anastassiou.  

Acropolis (2001/2004) explores the significance of Greece’s national symbol, the Acropolis, in the creation of national identity and collective memory. The film draws a parallel between the Parthenon (the “temple of the virgins,” as is the meaning of the monument’s ancient name) and the female body; intertwining super 8 found footage with archive material from state rituals and official celebrations set on the foothills of the sacred rock, worn-out images from 1960s stag films and well-preserved newsreels and medical films, field recordings and sound bites from radio broadcasts, bourgeois songs, or even the recording of the national anthem, the artist stitches the pieces of this unsettling collage with a confessional, first-person voice-over of an old soul that tries to reclaim her story.  

Notes: Remembered and Found (2024) presents four generations of women—Anastassiou’s infant daughter is also present in the film—circling around, approximating, interrupting, and reconfiguring the origin story of the family’s displacement during the war in Cyprus 1974. This grappling with the past is both an act of reciting (repeating from memory) and re-siting (resituating) of inherited narratives, the iterations of which constitute the shared vocabulary of a cross-generational language invested in the existentially important goal of mediating and preserving the family’s history. The film thus attempts to document the act of archiving; to mediate the act of mediation; but it does so in a way that openly resists the conventional archive’s aggressive demand for mystification and the often-unbearable weight it places on the shoulders of the postmemory generation. (Argyro Nicolaou). 

Additional information

Maria Anastassiou

Maria Anastassiou is an artist and filmmaker whose work explores the form and application of filmmaking structures and processes as entry points into place, histories, community and collaboration. Her films have been shown at amongst others; Whitney Museum NYC, Benaki Museum, Athens, BFI London, NiMAC Cyprus, Courtisane Festival, Ghent, Berwick Film and Media Festival UK, Open City Festival London. She is currently a resident at A House for Artists in London and since 2022 a PhD candidate in Film by Practice with University of Exeter and London Film School.

Eva Stefani

Eva Stefani is a film director and visual artist. Her cinematic work consists of short experimental and observational documentaries. Her films have been screened and awarded in international festivals (Cinema du Reel, Oberhausen, Idfa, Europe autour de l’ Europe etc) and there have been various retrospectives of her work in art venues and festivals around the world. Her work has been exhibited in international exhibitions, such as Documenta14 and the Venice Biennale 2019. She is a professor in the Department of Communication and Media at the School of Communication and Media at the University of Athens. Her latest feature film is Days and Nights with Demetra K. (2021).