Philoktet

Odysseus must recruit Philoctet, the disgraced war hero, to fight in the battle for Troy. Only with him is victory possible. But Philoctet lives in pain and agony due to an old lingering injury; nevertheless, he is perfectly prepared for the re-encounter with his nemesis Odysseus. The latter suspects this and sends Achilles’ son Neoptolemus ahead with a lie and a ruse. The three soldiers are forced to negotiate their hopeless entanglement through the logic of violence.

Following his stage work at the Schauspielhaus Basel, director Jan Bonny transferred the play to cinematic space and filmed a continuation with actresses Bibiana Beglau (as the narrator), Aenne Schwarz, Rosa Lembeck, and Elmira Bahrami, exploring a very different kind of physicality and timelessness.

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