ETERNITY
ETERNITY
PROJECT INDEX
PROJECT INDEX
ETERNITY/ΑΙΩΝΙΩΤΗΣ, 2023
Greek National Opera
Writer, director, producer: Ilias Madouros
Cinematography: Nikos Karanikolas
Music: Apostolis Koutsogiannis, Ralph Vaughan Williams
Adaptation, performance: Duo Hedi (Anastasia Kotsali, mezzo-soprano / Kostas Zigkeridis, bayan)
With the participation of local shopkeepers, residents, and Kallithea Municipal Market traders.
Co-produced with the Greek National Opera
Commissioned by the Greek National Opera, ETERNITY is a cinematic study of Kallithea — its heart, its people, and the forces reshaping it.
With music supervised and performed by Duo Hedi (Anastasia Kotsali, Kostas Zigkeridis) and set to six vignettes based on a song cycle by Ralph Vaughan Williams featuring poetry by William Blake, and on a piece by Apostolis Koutsogiannis setting poetry by Argyris Chionis to music, the film navigates an urban landscape in flux. The verses — both existential and hopeful — enter into dialogue with the demands of a city undergoing transformation.
From the construction site redeveloping the Faliro Bay seafront to the mouth of the River Ilissos, the film focuses on Kallithea’s essence — in its stadiums and on Syngrou Avenue, inside its neighborhoods and markets, across its seas and landmarks, and in the faces of its people. Beneath the surface of progress, it contemplates the lived realities of those who have long inhabited these spaces, questioning what is gained, what is lost, and how collective identity endures.
At its core, ETERNITY is a meditation on laïkótita, the popular ethos, our experiences and perceptions of the world, and how these are shaped — not only by objective reality, but also through our own subjective and imaginary lenses. Kallithea, for me, is where the fabric of the working class meets the contradictions of a transitional, postmodern present — where histories linger, not as monuments, but as rhythms woven into the city’s pulse. The challenge, then, is not just to document, but to remain conscious of the gaze itself — its power to both reveal and distort.
Watch trailer