The Origins Of Ajax
Feature Film | 110 Minutes
Writer/Director: Gabrielle Pfeiffer
Genre: Comedy/Drama
International Co-Production: Germany / Greece / Switzerland
Projected Production Start: 2025
Production Companies: Ajax The Movie LLC, ultimaratiofilm
Status: Financing
- development funding raised, development nearly completed
- several department heads attached (DP, costume and mask designer)
- screenplay completed
- principal casting nearly complete
- locations scouted
- world sales : UCM.ONE
Summary / Synopsis:
Ajax (27), a troubled young German of Greek origin, returns to Greece for the first time since a childhood holiday tragedy. As he and his travel mate set out on a road trip across spectacular Greek landscapes, Ajax is confronted by funny and terrifying mythological hallucinations like the oracle, the minotaur and Sisyphus, who give him advice about his personal problems. A visit to his estranged uncle and a chance encounter with a refugee change Ajax forever.
Gabrielle Pfeiffer: Director’s Vision and Inspiration
My father studied Classics and my mother was a war refugee. I grew up in a house bursting with books about ancient Greece and true tales of trauma, violence and death. With this film, I am setting out to make a contemporary odyssey road movie with as many twists and turns as the well-trodden, scenic backroads of Greece.
In order for the story of THE ORIGINS OF AJAX to take shape, I had to do my own road trip and have my own adventures. Over the course of three scouting trips to Greece, I drove some 5,000 km alone, from the Greek-Turkish border to the southern tip of Peloponnese.
I scouted spectacular landscapes and a dozen ancient theaters. And I spent two heart-breaking weeks on the island of Chios listening to tragic, true, refugee camp stories that made grown men cry in the telling.
And then, I wrote the script.
Where better to set the story of a quest for cultural identity in a globalized world than on the ancient crossroads of Greece. Ajax tries to find himself and discovers the beauty and grace of a common humanity. I come from a family scattered around the globe and have spent my whole life traveling the world and walking a multi-cultural high-wire, something that I embrace and love to explore in my films.
I passionately believe that THE ORIGINS OF AJAX is an important film for our times. Ajax hallucinates a meeting with an ancient Greek who explains that the theater provides society with an essential forum to explore the human soul and debate moral dilemmas of love and hate: “We cannot survive without theater.”
This deeply human film tells a truly global story of love, loss and chance encounters with laughter, tears, suspense and a happy end.
Excerpts from my correspondence with a Syrian refugee from the camp in Chios who read my screenplay:
“I loved it and can’t wait to watch it. First of all, I love Ajax and… the imaginary characters that Ajax hallucinated… Suha, she’s amazing, incredible and tough … I cried when she was telling him how she met a lot of good people in her journey… you didn’t stereotype Suha. All in all, it will make a great movie with amazing characters.”
Gabrielle Pfeiffer: Bio
Gabrielle Pfeiffer is an award-winning director, producer and screenwriter. She was born and raised in New York, educated in Geneva, and lives in Berlin. She studied filmmaking at New York University.
She has earned more than 35 director, producer, writer and script supervisor credits on feature films and documentaries. Her films have been screened and broadcast all over the world, and won awards at numerous international film festivals.
Gabrielle is a Swiss-American dual national from a multicultural family (Swiss father, Dutch-Indonesian mother). She spent her youth in New York making super-8 films, active in photography contests, co-founding a community theater, studying music at a conservatory and as team captain in competitive horseback riding. She works in English (mother tongue), German and French.
Previous to working in film, Gabrielle served the United Nations as an aid worker and researcher for seven years stationed in Mali, Sierra Leone, Switzerland (Geneva) and the US (New York). She also earned an Master’s degree in International Economics (University of Geneva) and a Bachelor’s in Political Science (Drew University).
