Medea

In her only film role, opera singer Maria Callas stars as the infamous sorceress in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s mesmeric take on the immortal Greek tragedy.

High priestess Medea, the granddaughter of the Greek sun god Helios, has her life fatefully ruptured when Jason and the Argonauts arrive on her homeland of Colchis to steal the Golden Fleece. Together, she and Jason abscond to Corinth, where she attempts to relinquish her spiritual past and subsume herself in the role of dutiful wife and mother to their two sons. When Jason abandons her to follow a more politically beneficial marriage, Medea is driven to a shocking act of vengeance.

In this visually stunning adaptation of Euripides’s canonical work, Pier Paolo Pasolini infuses the mythical tragedy with biting colonial allegory. A close friend of the visionary director, the legendary Maria Callas – dressed in brilliant costumes by Piero Tosi, who had previously worked with her on opera productions – delivers a powerhouse performance of diva proportions in the title role. The dramatic landscapes of Türkiye’s Central Anatolian region are further emphasised by the production design of Dante Ferretti, who worked on eight of Pasolini’s films before his Oscar-winning Hollywood career.

“Full of eccentric imagination and real passion … In its eerie evocation of Medea's world, which (according to Pasolini) is our subconscious world, it is superb.” – The New York Times

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Content: Melbourne International Film Festival