On-location shooting for a new documentary focusing on Lady Elgin, the woman who ostensibly financed the early-18th century pilfering of many of the Parthenon’s friezes, begins next May.
Respectfully called the “Parthenon Marbles” today and displayed at the British Museum in London, the artifacts were known for more than a century and a half as the “Elgin Marbles” after the rogue British diplomat who had them hacked off the Parthenon and haphazardly shipped to Great Britain.
Greece has long been pressing the British Museum to return the Parthenon Marbles.
The documentary’s script is the work of noted Greek actress and producer Mimi Denisi, with Katerina Evangelakou set to direct. Athens-based Lumad will be producing.
According to a press release, the documentary will detail the vandalism inflicted on the Parthenon by the Scottish nobleman Lord Elgin and his wife. The couple’s complete disrespect for the temple and for Greek antiquity is clear from their correspondence, in which the Caryatids, the incomparable sculpted female figures that support the roof of the south porch of the Erechtheion, a smaller temple on the Acropolis of Athens, are referred to as the… “Carry-something”.
Shooting will take place in Greece, Turkey and Great Britain.
