PARTHENON

In a cheap brothel at the foothills of an Athenian fortress, a man recounts the magnificent events of his life. His search for love and glory is retold and relived by many: a prostitute with an unredeemable past, a gangster haunted by bad luck, an icon painter who has no faith… In one of the stories, the man finds his riches, in another he becomes a vagabond prophet, in yet another he returns home to his wife. Memories betray him, but he knows for sure that in one of these lives, he will be killed.

World premiere: the 34th Critics' Week at the 76th Venice IFF

Mantas Kvedaravičius (Lithuania) was a filmmaker and an academic who held the long-standing interests in absence, materiality and body in their performative and political manifestations. He had a PhD in social anthropology from the University of Cambridge, and was working as an Associate Professor at Vilnius University. His documentaries — Barzakh (2011) and Mariupolis (2016) have premiered and been awarded in Berlinale, Busan, Hong-Kong, Nyon Visions du Réel film festivals.

Mantas Kvedaravicius was tortured and killed by Russian soldiers during the full-scale war against Ukraine in Mariupol in April 2022.