Filmmaker Statement

SIRENS explores how fear as a social construct is used to limit and control human desires. The beach house where the film takes place is a microcosm of society complete with its own distinct hierarchical structure, where a man uses the alibi of the sirens to exert power over two women. The sirens remain a mystery throughout the film. Drawing from Greek mythology but also from the use of air raid sirens in my home country of Cyprus as a mode of commemorating the war that split the country in two in 1974, the film’s sirens are characterized by an often contradictory polysemy. On the one hand, they are a constant reminder of imminent violence and death; a purposeful cultivation of fear for the unknown that aims to define—and by extension prevent—so-called transgressive behavior. On the other hand, they retain qualities of the mythological Sirens, those fatal female maritime beings that draw attention to the ambiguous, and blurry, line between fulfilling one’s desires and self-destruction.