XENON film

The film XENON is a political allegory created in response to the recent global economic
upheaval and state of human rights, and explores politics of work and notions of censorship.
Based on Mikhail Karikis’s performance art opera and featuring the original performers of the
stage production of the work, Karikis invited filmmaker David Bickerstaff to collaborate on the
production of a moving image version of the project.
XENON brings together experimental cinema, performance art and opera by combining
singular vocal performances, unique architectural settings, costumes and an original sound
score. The film centers on an austere office with seven main characters who begin to react
strangely when they notice the unusual absence of one of their colleagues. Yearning to overcome the oppressive routine and an omnipresent but invisible authority, each character enters a space to
battle with frustration, self-censorship, high aspirations and failure. The bleak and banal rou-
tine of the office is contrasted with sequences of reverie and psychologically charged imagin-
ings where each character searches for their voice, their dignity and human rights.