Project Detail

Constantinopoliad

Hands opening the small cover pages of a book, with the title 'Constantinopoliad' above, and text revealed within the pages.
Behind a gauze curtain people wearing headphones and looking down at the books on the table infront of them.
a hand-made book on a table, with a desk lamp above it, orange light reflecting off the pages.
The sillouettes of people through a gauze curtain, reading books in a green light.

Synopsis

Constantinopoliad is an expanded documentary and installation that centers around the collective reading of a hand-made book. A response to the archive of the poet Constantine Cavafy, the story is inspired by the blank and torn out pages in “Constantinopoliad, an epic”, the journal the teenage Cavafy began when he and his family fled Alexandria; by lost and missing queer archives through time; and by the ghosts, both erotic and historical, that visit the older Cavafy in his poems.
Official Selection Venice International Film Festival 2025 - Immersive
Official Selection CPH:DOX 2025 - Inter:Active Award - Winner

Details

Year
2025
Type of project
XR / Immersive
Running time
55 min
Format
Installation
Director
sister sylvester and Nadah El Shazly
Producer
sister sylvester
Co-Producer
Onassis ONX
Executive Producer
sister sylvester
Editor
sister sylvester
Screenwriter
sister sylvester
Production Designer
sister sylvester and Efrin Ozyetis
Sound
Nadah El Shazly
Composer
Nadah El Shazly
Principal cast
sister sylvester and Nadah El Shazly
Illustration and book co-design
Efrîn Ozyetis
Lighting
Cosette (Ettie) Pin
Slides
Jeremy Kadetsky based on a design by Tei Blow
Dramaturgy
Andrew Kircher
Produced by
sister sylvester
Associate Produced by
Julia Solomonoff, Marin Day

Production Status

Production Company

Sales Company

Page updates

This page was last updated on 20th January 2026. Please let us know if we need to make any amendments or request edit access by clicking below.

See also

You may also be interested in other relevant projects in the database.

Mr. Nobody Against Putin Mr. Nobody Against Putin

Director: David Borenstein (director), Pavel Talankin (co-director)

Year: 2025

A Russian teacher secretly documents his small town school's transformation into a war recruitment center during the Ukraine invasion, revealing the ethical dilemmas educators face amid propaganda and militarization. Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2025 - World premiere Official Selection CPH DOX 2025 Official Selection Sheffield DocFest 2025 BAFTA Awards 2026 - Winner - Best Documentary Academy Awards 2026 - Winner - Best Documentary Feature

Face, boy, eclipse A Season in Secret

Director: Matthew Berka

Year: 2027

A SEASON IN SECRET brings together material both close at hand and far away. It is a meditation on things glimpsed at a distance and the limits of perception. What lies behind the screen is hidden and may only be hinted at through the language of visible images and sounds. The film takes some of its cues from the Japanese aesthetic concept of Yūgen, described in part by the 15th-century aesthetician Zeami Motokiyo: “...to stand upon the shore and gaze after a boat that disappears behind distant islands.”

A Few Moments of Happiness (Quelques instants de bonheur) A Few Moments of Happiness (Quelques instants de bonheur)

Director: Shaden Safieddine Tazi

Year: 2026

A young Lebanese filmmaker in Paris watches Lebanon's war unfold on her phone from bed. In a state of paralysis, barely able to get out of bed, she calls her father everyday and begins recording her digital life. Using screen recordings, family voices, and silences, the film intimately portrays a generation witnessing their homeland's destruction remotely. Official Selection Venice International Film Festival 2026 - World premiere