“Halepas” – A film short directed by The Boy and Argyro Chioti

Available from 02.02.2022 at 21:00

31.01.2022

A trek through the mountains on Tinos island. A journey into the universe of a legendary sculptor. Take in the trance-like tappings of marble being carved.

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The film short “Halepas”, directed by The Boy and Argyro Chioti, will be available online one week before the stage production of the same name opens – catch it on the Onassis Channel on YouTube, February 2 at 21:00.

The film “Halepas” was shot as part of an Onassis Stegi artistic fellowship. During the course of their research, the creative team – headed by Argyro Chioti – made a first visit to Tinos island and conducted interviews with its inhabitants. The trip also resulted in a first draft of the libretto written by The Boy, and the first scores composed by Jan Van Angelopoulos, both for the stage production of the same title. The film – completed with additional footage shot at Lavrion in Attica – stars Georgina Chriskioti, Simos Kakalas, and Maria Panourgia.

With its fragmentary and freely-associative narrative, the work seeks to dive deep into the psyche of an individual whose life took an arduous path, with the mountains, seas and winds of Tinos making themselves intensely felt, a shadow in constant pursuit, a memory of love resurfacing, and a battle between sketch and sculpture stirring to life.

Stills

“May 7, 1876. Today we said “I love you”, to shoes even and doorknobs, to butterflies and flies.”

Notes from the diary kept by Argyro Chioti on Tinos island

“Yanoulis was always heading up the mountain. Going to the windmills, sitting up high, to be inspired – he liked it there because he could see Pyrgos [village] down on one side, Ysternia [village] down on the other. The quarry, what a colossal revelation: otherworldly landscape, futuristic stone catacomb, marble green. Lying tossed in the road, the carcass of a pig in an advanced state of decay. Inside the quarry, the human body feels tiny. Masses of rock rise immense, undeniable. Simos and I might come back and shoot, set to that Greek laikó [Greek folk] song sung by a mother, “This earth, this soil… A kiss, give me a kiss… To you I gave my name”. First tests with Jo’s bare body – warmth in the icy cold. Her voice, how it echoes, incredible.

At the coffee shop I spoke for some time with mister Lazaros, a green marble master craftsman. His cane was made of mulberry wood. His mother knew Halepas. Here’s what he said: “All the while he lived here, no-one ever appreciated him. Like a dog he slept, in the street. Like a dog.”

We spent a long time at the School of Marble Sculpture, spoke with Leonidas Halepas and the marble sculptor Yorgos Sylikos. Natural light enters from above, through a skylight. The act of carving at the school is like music. Trance-like. The sound soft and sweet despite the hardness of the marble. We’ll be back to make a recording.

‘A fairy tale am I. A fairy tale I’ll tell?’ – so said Yanoulis somewhere, sometime.”