Tracing the effects of financialisation and austerity, the collaborative project The Broken Pitcher by Natascha Sadr Haghighian, Marina Christodoulidou and Peter Eramian attends to a concrete case: A crucial meeting at a bank, negotiating the foreclosure of a family home in Larnaka, Cyprus, in 2019. Foreclosure is one of the austerity measures that were imposed on the Cypriot government by the Troika (the EU Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund) after the financial crisis in 2012.

Inspired by Abbas Kiarostami’s film First Case - Second Case (1979, Iran), the filmed reenactment of the bank meeting is shown to people from various backgrounds who are asked to respond to the question: “In your opinion what should the bank employees do?”. The responses encompass perspectives of people from different interest groups in Cyprus and beyond, including housing rights activists in Barcelona, Berlin and Beirut, persons who are similarly affected by these policies, public figures, lawyers, economists and artists.

The Broken Pitcher is presented in response to more than 700 foreclosures expected to occur on the island over summer 2023, while also situating the matter in relation to the colonial history of finance, debt and property. Seeking out potentials for changing the script while interacting with it, extensive research material is made available in the projection room.

On the occasion of the festival’s closing event and in tandem with the looped screening of The Broken Pitcher, the eponymous record The Broken Pitcher: A Soundbank is being released. Emiddio Vasquez, founder of the label and event series Moneda (Cyprus & Arizona), together with Elena Savvidou, Dimitris Chimonas, Belinda Papavasiliou, Veronika Georgiou, Marios Pavlou, Kyriaki Rafaelia Tsiridou and Peter Eramian give a xerox performance in which attendants witness the manufacturing process of the record while engaging in collective listening.

Opening screening on August 1st at 19:00. Followed by a discussion in the presence of the directors. Film screening hours on a walk-in basis daily for the durations of the festival: 19:00-20:10 / 20:15-21:25 / 21:30-22:40

‘The Broken Pitcher: A Soundbank’ closing event on August 8th at 22:30.