Flash Art Festival - 28-29 November 2025 | Rialto Theatre

The Rialto Theatre presents Flash Art for the sixth consecutive year, which, having started as an initiative to support Cypriot creators, has now evolved into a festival of contemporary performing arts. The Flash Art Festival 2025 (28–29 November) brings to the stage six original productions of theatre, dance, music, cinema and performance, highlighting the vibrant and restless spirit of Cyprus’ creative scene.

The festival’s second day, Saturday 29 November, offers an evening of experimentation and reflection. From the pioneering screening of a silent film with live music by Yakovlev, to the physical and audiovisual exploration by Elias Klark, and the lyrical and melodic performance of twin brothers Michalis and Pantelis Kalogerakis, the audience will experience a night where history, memory, and music intertwine into a unique and immersive experience.

Saturday, November 29, 2025

19:00 | 50’ | «Different From the Others (1919)» In collaboration with Queer Wave and Goethe-Institut Zypern

Two male musicians fall in love, but blackmail and scandal turn the affair tragically. One of the first gay-themed films in cinema history, «Different From the Others» was banned upon release, later burned by the Nazis, and believed lost for more than forty years. Filmmuseum München has resurrected this pioneering silent film using newly discovered footage, still photos, and censorship documents from various archives.

Presented by Queer Wave, this screening shines new light on this 106-year-old work, with a one-off ephemeral ambient electronic music collage performed live on stage by Yakovlev. The film will never again be experienced in the same way.

20:15 | 30’ | «The New Buffer Zone» – Elias Klark

In his solo performance The New Buffer Zone, Elias Klark invites the audience into a unique audiovisual experience: a microcosm “fertilizes” itself with ghostly blood, and Cyprus’s buffer zone is reborn on a stage where amorphous shadows dance across abandoned, haunted land between North and South. The piece is a profound act of self-reconciliation, transcending divisions and tracing the gradual evolution of an endless rhythmic organism.

Through this performance, the dancer and performer, active between the Netherlands and Cyprus, explores themes such as colonial legacies, national diasporas, and militarized states, using the body and shifting spaces — imaginary “buffer zones” — to open new pathways of perception and collective existence. His work focuses on transformation and the coexistence of time and space, inviting the audience to envision new forms of resistance and revolution. A performance that captivates and delivers an unforgettable experience.

21:30 | 70’ | «Michalis and Pantelis Kalogerakis»

Michalis & Pantelis Kalogerakis present part of their personal discography. From their first album, Boukolikon 2015, to their sixth, The Fairy Tales of Melpomene 2025, the Kalogerakis brothers will perform poems set to music. Music composition and performance by Michalis Kalogerakis, dramatic adaptation and performance by Pantelis Kalogerakis. They will be accompanied on the clarinet by Alexis Stenakis.

The twin brothers Michalis and Pantelis Kalogerakis, with origins from Crete, create and perform vocal music. They appear in leading cultural venues across Greece. Since childhood, they have been exploring the intersection of poetry, music, and theater. Their discography includes six albums, among them Rebotika, which fuses rebetiko with letters exchanged between Verlaine and Rimbaud. Their sixth project, The Tales of Melpomene, was presented in 2024 at the Alternative Stage of the Greek National Opera at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center in Athens.

Ticket prices:

•    €8 per performance

•    €20 Day pass (for all performances on the same day)

•    €30 Festival card (for both days)

Information & tickets: www.rialto.com.cy | 77777745

Organiser: Rialto Theatre

Institutional Sponsor: Deputy Ministry of Culture, Department of Contemporary Culture

Mega Sponsors: OPAP Cyprus, MEDOCHEMIE, Island Oil Holdings.

Media Sponsors: Kathimerini, Love Fm 100,7, Kanali 6