Theban Plays: Oedipus the King

Medea is a powerful witch who gets revenge on her cheating husband Jason by killing their children.

Based on the plot of Euripides' Medea. Medea centers on the barbarian protagonist as she finds her position in the Greek world threatened, and the revenge she takes against her husband Jason who has betrayed her for another woman.

Constance is a bored, movie-loving schoolteacher in post-WW2 New Zealand who begins to fantasize that she's a Hollywood star - with tragic consequences.

Recalling his childhood and relationship with his mother, a film student tries to understand the origin of his love for cinema and tragedies.

The story of Oedipus' gradual discovery of his primal crime, killing his father and marrying his mother, filmed by the famed British theatrical director Sir Tyrone Guthrie. This elegant version of Sophocles' play adds a brilliant stroke: the actors wear masks just as the Greeks did in the playwright's day.

"Almost everything disappeared. How did it happen?" a man wonders on his deathbed. Elizabeth Lazebnik’s patient, poetic and supremely controlled film sensitively addresses the terrible thought that our pasts, our accomplishments, our families, and friends can be effaced by encroaching sickness and impending death.

“The Suppliants of Aeschylus were part of a trilogy consisting of Supplicants, Sons of Egypt and Danaids, followed by a satyr drama Amirnon. It was first performed at the Theater of Dionysus in Athens, probably in 463 BC."

In 1960s Tokyo, Gonda owns a bar in which the gay, cross-dresser, and trans scenes meet. Gonda is in a relationship with the madam of the bar, Leda. As the younger Eddie starts a passionate affair with Gonda, she ignites the jealousy of Leda, unaware of another kind of history between them.

Frine cortigiana d'Oriente

In the aftermath of the Trojan Wars, Queen Hecuba takes stock of the defeated kingdom. Her son has been killed, and his widow, Andromache, is left to raise their son, Astyanax, alone. Hecuba's daughter, Cassandra, fears being enslaved by her Greek masters, while Helen of Troy risks being executed. Astyanax also becomes the focus of the Greeks' attention as the last male heir of the Trojan royal family.

Living in exile after the death of their father, the grown children of a murdered and usurped king converge to exact eye-for-an-eye revenge.

A modern retelling of the Greek myth of Phaedra. The young and fiery second wife of an extremely wealthy shipping magnate meets her estranged stepson Alexis and sparks immediately fly. Their love seems doomed from the beginning when she convinces him to come to Paris to meet his father.

Near the end of the Civil War, the proud residents of Mannon Manor await the return of shipping tycoon Ezra Mannon and son Orin. Meanwhile Ezra’s conniving wife Christine and daughter Lavinia vie for the love of a handsome captain with a dark secret while well-meaning neighbor Peter sets his sights on Lavinia.

It is election night. Oedipus is on the verge of a massive victory. The country has not known a leader for many years since Laius' death. The ambitions are great. Oedipus wants to create a future, create a new way of life. He also insists, if elected, that the investigation into the death of his predecessor is reopened. In the meanwhile, in the half-empty campaign headquarters, Oedipus is surprised by his family - mother, wife and children - with a dinner. An old incident is thereby brought up. Gradually, Oedipus discovers that his past is very different from what he has always thought. During his research, the pieces of the puzzle fall together. Oedipus tries to control his fate, but discovers that he has been seeing blind all along.

Scheherazade narrates three more tales, supposedly selected from the 470th, 484th and 497th nights of her ordeal: “It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that a Judge will cry instead of giving out her sentence. A runaway murderer will wander through the land for over forty days and will teletransport himself to escape the Guard while dreaming of prostitutes and partridges. A wounded cow will reminisce about a thousand-year-old olive tree while saying what she must say, which will sound none less than sad!

A disturbing film about the Portuguese underworld of prostitution.

Medea is expelled from the mining region in the Atacama Desert and is given just one day to disappear. But in that single day, she comes up with a plan for revenge. In order to carry out this plan, which will culminate in her murdering her own son, she invokes her innermost strength, summoning the power of the female gender.

A lonely, recluse sculptor must confront his inner turmoil and reckon with his romantic desires when his statue comes to life.

Based on a true story, Agnus Dei is a kind of Oedipus of our days. Peter must find his way to redemption. But the past will make itself known and fate sparingly gives mercy. Can he save himself, or even be saved at all?

Meinir's Tree