World Premiere at CineFIX: “When Winds in Monsoon Play, the White Peacock Will Sweep Away” and Other Films by Driant Zeneli on the EMST Rooftop

This September, CineFIX, the open-air cinema of the National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens (EMST), invites audiences to an evening of poetic narratives and bold visual storytelling.

CineFIX, the summer cinema of the National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST), will continue its screenings until the end of September.

As part of its mission, EMST explores the rich and complex cultural landscape, as well as the history, of the broader geographic and geopolitical region in which Greece is situated — the Balkans, North Africa, and the Middle East. In this context, on Thursday, September 4, the museum is hosting a special evening dedicated to the films of internationally acclaimed Albanian artist Driant Zeneli, who represented Albania at the Venice Biennale in 2019 and is currently featured in EMST’s major group exhibition “Why Look at Animals? Justice for Non-Human Life.”

The event will include the world premiere of Zeneli’s new film, “When Winds in Monsoon Play, the White Peacock Will Sweep Away,” alongside a curated selection of his earlier and more recent works.

Following the screenings, there will be a short Q&A session with the director.

Film Program

“When Winds in Monsoon Play, the White Peacock Will Sweep Away” (2025, 21’21’’)
An operatic film set within the Parliament of Dhaka and the Srihatta Art Centre in Sylhet, Bangladesh. Through the allegorical tale of a white peacock falling in love with its own tear, Zeneli crafts a poetic narrative structured around the six seasons of the Bengali calendar. The film unfolds across multiple layers of meaning, touching on political and ecological issues. It draws references from the “July Revolution, 2024” during which over a thousand people lost their lives in a wave of protests and political upheaval in Bangladesh, leading to the fall of Sheikh Hasina’s long-standing leadership.

The baroque-inspired score, adapted by conductor Francesco Aliberti and performed by countertenor Pasquale Auricchio, blends baroque influences with traditional Bengali instruments and motifs, creating a unique and hybrid sonic identity.

“These Sweet Murky Waters” (2023, 13’16”)
A poetic journey through art, memory, and ecology, this film reimagines Sabiha Kasimati, Albania’s first female scientist, as a modern Prometheus. By weaving together history, mythology, and robotics, the work celebrates her passion for biodiversity and her resistance against oppression, transforming her tragic fate into a luminous act of defiance and rebirth.

Trilogy: “The Animals. Once Upon a Time … in a Present Time” (2019 – 2022)

Chapter 1: “No Wise Fish Would Escape Without Flying” (2019, 7’10”)
In a playful allegory, children help a trapped fish escape from a shark and a fishing net. The setting is the National Library of Kosovo, a futuristic brutalist landmark of former Yugoslavia. Blending imagination, history, and technology, the film transforms architecture into an optimistic narrative, conveying a wise message to younger generations and redefining knowledge as a liberating, living force.

Chapter 2: “How Deep Can a Dragonfly Swim Under the Ocean?” (2021, 11’23”)
A dragonfly trapped inside the Pyramid of Tirana, a monument built in honor of dictator Enver Hoxha, symbolizes both resilience and confinement. The film draws from the real-life story of Roland Risto, serving a 21-year solitary sentence in an Albanian prison, who constructs robotic insects from improvised materials to pass the time. Feeding on a fossilized octopus yet unable to fly, the dragonfly becomes a metaphor for humanity’s struggle to transcend imposed limits, merging memory, architecture, and transformation into a meditative reflection on freedom and adaptation.

Chapter 3: “The Firefly Keeps Falling and the Snake Keeps Growing” (2022, 11’46”)
Inspired by an ancient myth, the film unfolds inside the Central Post Office of Skopje, a brutalist masterpiece built in 1974 under Tito, now one of UNESCO’s most endangered landmarks following a devastating fire. Created in collaboration with engineering students, the work transforms this monument of fragility into a space of imagination, resilience, and collective creation.

“Those Who Tried to Put the Rainbow Back in the Sky” (2012, 7’50”)
Set in the Albanian village of Velmisht, the film follows three people and a duck who discover a fallen rainbow aboard a ship. Their attempt to return it to the sky evolves into a meditative quest about dreams, roots, and suspended destinies.

“When I Grow Up I Want to Be an Artist” (2007, 21’55”)
The artist’s father — once a painter under Enver Hoxha’s communist regime and later a forger of visas — reflects on art as a tool of political and social survival. As he paints his son in the same style once reserved for dictators, the narrative intertwines personal failure with Albania’s turbulent history, blurring the boundaries between truth and fiction in a haunting, magical portrait.