From the Film Maker...

Rubens uses ancient Greek symbols for each goddess: peacock for Hera, shield for Athena and unique nudity for Aphrodite. I tried to present each female character with her own style to reflect Rubens’s symbolizations.

I made the characters distinctive, as they appear in the painting. Hera is all-powerful, wearing a green outfit with a peacock tail attached to her hat ; Athena is the goddess of wisdom, so the character looks attractively smart, focused on her book; whereas Aphrodite, the goddess of love, is a blonde woman wearing a dress with a dominant red colour. Red represents lust and passion.

Rubens portrays Paris as a young, strong and good-looking shepherd and I kept that same aspect, but added some depth by making him too sure of himself, especially with women in general.

The painting communicates the power play and social relations between men and women. I wanted to recreate the same scene occurring today, when a man like Paris has to face three different and attractive women, this time in a bar. To add a new element to the story, there is a plot twist in which all characters are involved.

As a small detail in the film, the woman representing Aphrodite drops her gold coloured little bag when the man bumps into her. He quickly collects it and gives it back to her, a nod to the painting and to the legend when Paris shows the golden apple as a trophy to the winner, Aphrodite.
Ali Tan Akinsal