La vertigineuse histoire d'Orthosia, J. Hadjithomas & K. Joreige
Saturday 20 Sep 2025 from 7pm to 8:15pm
Sunday 21 Sep 2025 from 3pm to 4:15pm
8 € (reduced) - 15 €
In partnership with le Festival d'Automne
The filmmakers and artists Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige work between photography, installations, video and cinema to question the construction of imaginaries and the writing of forgotten stories. Through this performance, they draw us into a palimpsest of constant cycles of construction and destruction, uncovering possible narratives of the underground worlds.
This story unfolds in the north of Lebanon, at Nahr el Bared, in a refugee camp hastily set up to shelter Palestinian families fleeing the Nakba of 1948. Years later, in 2007, war broke out between the Lebanese army and an infiltrated Islamist group, leading to the destruction of part of the camp. It was at that moment that the first traces appeared of Orthosia, an ancient Roman city, which vanished after being overwhelmed by a tsunami in 551 and which, despite 15 centuries of vain attempts to find it, no-one could ever have imagined it there.
But how to deal with this major discovery, as excavations would mean a ‘second displacement’ for the refugee families? A dizzying performance, full of (dis)continuities, upheavals and regeneration, which plunges us into a past that feels particularly close to the present.
In partnership with le Festival d’Automne.
Saturday's performance is followed by a discussion with the artists and Francesca Corona (Festival d’Automne, Artistic Director) and Madeleine Planeix-Crocker (Lafayette Anticipations, Performance and Live Arts Curator)
They question the fabrication of images and representations, the construction of imaginaries and the writing of history. Their long-term research is based on personal or political documents, the traces of the invisible and the absent, in stories kept secret such as latencies of wars, a forgotten space project, geological and archaeological undergrounds of cities, or the strange consequences of internet scams and spams. Their award-winning films include Memory Box (2021), Ismyrna (2016), The Lebanese Rocket Society (2012), Je Veux Voir (2008), A Perfect Day (2005)...
They received the prestigious Marcel Duchamp Prize in 2017 for their artistic project Unconformities.
Joana and Khalil are both very involved in cultural structures in Lebanon such as Correspondaences, Metropolis and Cinémathèque Beirut.