Persephone

^{Short film, length: 9:39, year: 2025}

Persephone is a poetic short dance film that explores the eternal interplay between growth and loss, transformation and resilience.

Through the fusion of movement, music, and scenography, the film reflects on the fragile balance between life and death as part of a natural, cyclical process.
Drawing from the ancient Greek myth, Persephone — goddess of both spring and the underworld — is reimagined not as a passive victim of abduction, but as a figure of agency and sovereignty. By eating the pomegranate seeds, she consciously chooses a life that exists between contrasting worlds. She becomes the goddess of in-betweenness, no longer defined solely as Demeter’s daughter or Hades’ bride, but as the author of her own transition.
The film opens in near-darkness. Persephone appears suspended between awakening and oblivion. Guided by subtle light and sound, she slowly becomes aware of her surroundings. Twelve objects encircle her. At the center lie the scattered remains of an abstract sculpture — fragments of something once whole. As her movement unfolds, she carefully begins to assemble the sculpture piece by piece, giving form to life itself. At the height of brightness and vitality, Persephone confronts her fate and eats the forbidden fruit — the pomegranate seeds. What follows is collapse: the sculpture disintegrates, light fades, and the world she has built falls apart. As darkness returns, Persephone is once more illuminated only by the faint glow on her body. The space mirrors the opening scene. What at first appears to be an ending reveals itself as a return. The cycle closes where it began — not as repetition, but as renewal.

^{The world premiere will take place in March 2026 in the framework of the festival Cinedans at EYE in Amsterdam.}_{Credits:
Direction • scenography • costume: Siba Sahabi

Choreography • dance: Miri Lee

Cinematography: Emilia Tapprest

Production: Siba Sahabi Foundation

Make-up • hair: Olga Repina

Editing: Amber Hoolimans

Colour grading: Kevin Kimman

Music: Rutger Zuydervelt}

_{The project is made possible by the AFK & the Gilles Hondius  Foundation.}