SCREENING:

American Woman

Laxlan Petras

6:00-8:30pm, Saturday 18 October, 2025

Cinema relies on the suspension of disbelief. A true story has some relation to reality. Facts have become an impossible profession, and fiction is likely a Venn diagram where biography bleeds into imagination. Greek-Australian artist Laxlan Petras returned to Lemnos, the birthplace his father left for Australia in the 1960s, and made ‘American Woman’ in the limbo of his family’s island, working with professionals—half of them closely related to him. Friends and family can be professionals too. The narrative tracks a father and son whose right to belong on the island is unquestioned, their place secured through blood and daily labour. The film was shot in the 31st week of 2024 and travelled like its own story, through whispers. Everyone on Lemnos knew, before she even arrived, that an American woman was searching for her lost father in this distant corner of Greece. Against the backdrop of this remote, dry landscape, these forces—islander and intruder—collide as paranoia turns to fate.

-Angharad Williams and Gianmaria Andreetta

Laxlan Petras and Xaralambos Petras will present the video followed by Q+A.

Credits:

Actors - Amber Fasquelle, Xaralambos Petras, Laxlan Petras, Dominik Belavy, Andrea Marcellier, Antonis Koutsogiannis, Panagiotis Mosxos, Maraiana Damianidou

DOP - Milan Daemgen

Additional Cintematography - Onur Gokmen

Supervising Editor - Richard Sides

Composer - Lilly Beach

Audio Mastering - Nelson Beer, Jordi Braut Serrano

Colourist - Onur Gokmen

Costumes - Andrea Marcellier

Script Editors - Quinn Hogan, Amber Fasquellle, Angharad Williams

Executive Producer - Alexandros Konstantinou

Director, Writer and Editor - Laxlan Petras

Premiered at The Wig, Berlin, Spring 2025