Antigone — 2018



Two synchronised 35mm color anamorphic films, optical sound, with a running time of exactly 1 hour, continuous loop synced to start on the hour.

Director: Tacita Dean
Cinematography: Trevor Tweeten, Jamie Cairney




Tacita Dean, an artist and vocal advocate for the preservation of the medium of film, debuted her most ambitious project to date – Antigone in May 2018. Dean’s work is characterized by a sense of history, time and place, light quality, and the essence of the film itself. In line with these themes, the project is composed of a two-screen 35 mm film installation celebrating the quality and techniques of photochemical film. Derived from the origin of her own sister’s name, Antigone takes its starting point from the undramatized part between two of Sophocles’ three Theban plays, Oedipus Rex and Oedipus at Colonus, whose mythological character, Antigone, guides her blind and lame father, Oedipus, through the wilderness. The film underscores the importance of film experimentation and highlights the endeavor of film, as a medium, to find a form between art, cinema and theater.