As part of the events of the YPPO for the night of the August Full Moon, the Ephorate of Antiquities of Ilia and the Olympia International Film Festival for Children and Youth invite the residents of Ilia and the visitors of Olympia, to the atrium of the Archaeological Museum of Olympia, on Monday, August 19, 2024 and at 8:30 p.m., in a rare cinema viewing experience, with the multi-award winning film by Michalis Kakogiannis “Elektra” (1962).

The film, in which Irini Pappa, Giannis Fertis, Aleka Katseli, Manos Katrakis, Notis Pergialis, Takis Emmanouil, and which will be screened with English subtitles, is a film adaptation of Euripides’ tragedy of the same name and is one of the best adaptations of ancient Greek tragedy in the cinema, which swept the awards at world film festivals. The physiognomy of Irene Pappa transforms a ragged princess, who looks like a boy, into a vengeful creature of animal energy, and Mikis Theodorakis signs a musical motif that counters the protagonist’s desperate cry, as noted by the organizers.

Playwright Eugene Ionesco praised the film, writing in “Le Figaro” that it was the most beautiful film he had ever seen, the Cannes Film Festival instituted the award for Best Film Adaptation to honor it, while the 24 other international awards and the nomination for the Foreign Language Oscar film, disarmingly stamp the quality of a film that is not a cinematic staging of a play, but transforms the tragedy into a cinematic catharsis.

Electra, forcibly married to a lowly peasant, waits for an opportunity to avenge the death of her father Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, who was murdered by her mother Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus. The opportunity presents itself when she recognizes Orestes’ brother over her father’s grave. The two together plan to kill Aegisthus and Clytemnestra. But regrets will not take long to take center stage, in a tragedy where Euripides deals with the classical myth in much more modern terms than Sophocles or even Aeschylus: “Even I, who am mortal, tell you this: / Rejoice as they rejoice / those who have never known sorrow / and live happily…”.