ORIGINS (2015) / final scene

ORIGINS / director’s cut final scene OPENING CEREMONY FIRST EUROPEAN GAMES conceived, visualised and directed by DIMITRIS PAPAIOANNOU Baku 2015 --- the final fifteen minutes that lit the fire of the first European Games on 12 June 2015 in Baku a story created with the ingredients of Azerbaijan, land of FIRE an iconic Azerbaijani CARPET the sound of MUGHAM the mud volcanoes that make vast CRACKED EARTH landscapes a SEMENI plate with green sprouting wheat, symbol of NOVRUZ, a festival rooted in ZOROASTRIANISM that celebrates spring and rebirth FIRE MOUNTAIN (YANAR DAG), where eternal fires burn from the ground prehistoric PETROGLYPHS — among the earliest images created by humans — carved into the rocks at GOBUSTAN the CASPIAN sea a traditional MALE DANCE the story of LEYLI & MAJNUN, a legendary unfulfilled love from the epic poem by NIZAMI where Majnun becomes a “holy fool”, a hermit on a MOUNTAIN who envisions the image of Leyli as the mani