A man shaves, and waits. Walks around, and waits. Smokes, and waits. The airport he’s in is deserted, even neglected, and yet he seems to be waiting for his departure – patiently, in vain. The place from where people and machines once set off towards the rest of the world today looks like a ruin, where the remnants of modern civilisation are withering away. The protagonist, who is in a strange limbo, confronts the ghostly emptiness with memories and explorations, with dance and stories, with letters and wanderings.
For his first feature-length film, the London-born Bangladeshi artist Naeem Mohaiemen went to the now-abandoned Athens Ellinikon airport, which most recently served as a reception centre for migrants. Based on the experience of his father, who had to cancel a planned trip to Tripoli in 1977 because he had lost his passport, the film not only addresses the current refugee experience, but delivers an impressive, aesthetic choreography of stagnation and alienation, which is defined by everyday rituals as much as by humour, fantasy and emotions.
