The Forbidden Quest

  • May 18, 2023 / 19:00
  • May 26, 2023 / 21:00

Director: Peter Delpeut
Cast: Joseph O’Conor, Roy Ward
Netherlands, 1993, 71', DCP, b&w, color
English with Turkish subtitles

In The Forbidden Quest, the Irish ship's carpenter J.C. Sullivan tells listeners how he survived an expedition to the Antarctic in the year 1905. He manages to convince his initially sceptical audience by showing them real film footage recording the loss of the expedition’s ship to the ice. 

Filmmaker Peter Delpeut – former artistic director of Eye Filmmuseum– , dove into the film archive to construct this imagined story of the sole survivor of an expedition to the South Pole from historical silent film footage. The result is a compelling adventure film about murder, cannibalism and mystic salvation.

The Forbidden Quest incorporates found footage into a thriller-like narrative about the fates of pioneering explorers from the era of Amundsen, Scott and Shackleton. The footage –shot during real expeditions by courageous cameramen such as Frank Hurley, Odd Dahl and Herbert Ponting transports us to the immeasurable cold and silence of polar landscapes. The structure of the film makes one constantly question what is real and what is fake, placing it among the important examples of the mockumentary genre.

The Brilliant Biograph: Earliest Moving Images of Europe <br>(1897-1902)

The Brilliant Biograph: Earliest Moving Images of Europe
(1897-1902)

The Forbidden Quest

The Forbidden Quest

Carmen of the North

Carmen of the North

A Profitable Exchange

A Profitable Exchange

Desmet Collection: Ladies first!

Desmet Collection: Ladies first!

The Ottoman Way of Serving Coffee

The Ottoman Way of Serving Coffee

Coffee was served with much splendor at the harems of the Ottoman palace and mansions. First, sweets (usually jam) was served on silverware, followed by coffee serving. The coffee jug would be placed in a sitil (brazier), which had three chains on its sides for carrying, had cinders in the middle, and was made of tombac, silver or brass. The sitil had a satin or silk cover embroidered with silver thread, tinsel, sequin or even pearls and diamonds.

Il Cavallo di Leonardo

Il Cavallo di Leonardo

In 1493, exactly 500 years ago, Leonardo da Vinci was finishing the preparations for casting the equestrian monument (4 times life size), which Ludovico il Moro, Duke of Milan commissioned in memory of his father some 12 years earlier. 

Good News from the Skies

Good News from the Skies

Inspired by the exhibition And Now the Good News, which focusing on the relationship between mass media and art, we prepared horoscope readings based on the chapters of the exhibition. Using the popular astrological language inspired by the effects of the movements of celestial bodies on people, these readings with references to the works in the exhibition make fictional future predictions inspired by the horoscope columns that we read in the newspapers with the desire to receive good news about our day.