Celebrating 15 years of presence, the Onassis Foundation’s Stegi has prepared a rich program presented by the Artistic Director of the Onassis Foundation, Aphrodite Panagiotakou, at the Mandra venue.

On this momentous anniversary, the Onassis Cultural Centre has demonstrated a dynamic and diverse presence that now extends beyond the city limits and even beyond the country. However, Athens, its sounds, streets and people remain the foundation of the Onassis Cultural Centre.

At the heart of this year’s program is the family. This includes the people of Onassis Cultural Center, the artists, the collaborators, and of course the audience.

The season’s program includes theater, dance, and music productions, discussions, films, exhibitions, and festivals in the physical and digital worlds, as well as many initiatives outside Stagi.

Theater: The family sets the tone for this season. Foreign directors meet Greek actors, artists collaborate for the first time, while a tribute highlights the artistic work of the director of the Avignon Festival, showcasing his legacy and vision.

The theater season opens at the Main Stage with Le Passé (The Past) by the artistic director of the Odéon Théâtre de l’Europe in Paris, Julien Gosselin (October 16-19, 2025), a performance based on texts by Russian writer Leonid Andreyev. With an epic theatrical work, in which various extremes are committed in the name of love, romance, and family, Gosselin crafts a postmodern requiem for the 20th century, love, and humanism, with live filming and powerful performances by a seven-member troupe.

This is followed by Robert Icke’s Oedipus with a Greek cast (November 20–December 28, 2025) at the Main Stage, where the most famous family drama of all time becomes a sardonic thriller with unrelenting tension and scenes that balance between political thriller and tragedy, in a gathering with no escape.

Argentinian director and writer Mariano Pensotti, in his third collaboration with the Onassis Cultural Center, brings the Greek version of his new play, A Voracious Shadow ( March 5–April 26, 2026), featuring a mountaineer and the actor who plays him in a film. A play about absent fathers whom their children mythologize and present fathers whom their children despise. Just as climate change melts the world’s ice caps, so time seems to deconstruct the myths that families weave around themselves. In The Little Prince’s Blues (March 12–April 26, 2026), Yannis Angelakas and Giorgos Gousis set up an electromagnetic wave of words, music, and songs that penetrate the soul and body, earthly wars and interplanetary journeys, the Pilot and the Little Prince. The stage becomes a universe, made up of words and thoughts that radiate light in a performance-affirmation of life, love, friendship, and the families we choose.

The season’s program is rounded off with a tribute to the Artistic Director of the Avignon Festival, Tiago Rodrigues, The Lovers’ Dance, a work that celebrates love and companionship (December 4, 2025 – January 18, 2026 at the Onassis Cultural Center, January 22–25, 2026 at the Thessaloniki Concert Hall), is being repeated and proves that its protagonists are not a family just because they are married, but because they live with the passion of those who choose each other every day from the beginning, against time and decay.

In La Distance (May 7–10, 2026), Rodrigues’s latest work, a daughter and father live on two different planets—literally. The Portuguese director delivers a love letter to family, weaving a moving story about a bond that transcends planets and environmental disasters. Two lives orbiting on a rotating stage, far away, yet closer than ever. This is followed by By Heart (May 11–12, 2026), which is being presented at the Onassis Cultural Center for the second time, a decade after its initial presentation. In the play, which came to life when the author’s grandmother began to lose her sight, the family becomes a collective act: the audience, through memorization, keeps in mind a Shakespearean sonnet and, together, a legacy. To remind us that we are what we remember.

Dance: February brings the Onassis Dance Days contemporary dance festival (February 5–8, 2026), which this year focuses on “the familiar and the unfamiliar,” the concepts of origin, family, acquaintances, strangers, and eclectic relationships. This year’s foreign production included in the festival belongs to the explosive Marlene Monteiro Freitas with NÔT (February 6-8, 2026), a transcendent, hypnotic choreographic narrative, full of fragments of dreams and nightmares. Like a memory from One Thousand and One Nights and Scheherazade’s act of survival, who told incomplete stories every night to her murderous king and husband to escape her death.

Cinema: Onassis Culture supports established creators and new talent through the development of screenplays and the production of short and feature-length films, collaborates with important institutions, and promotes Greek cinema.

The following films will be screened at the Onassis Cultural Centre: The Harvest by Athina Rachel Tsangari (September 23, 2025) and The Secret Agent by Kleber Mendonça Filho, as part of the 31st Athens International Film Festival “Opening Nights” (October 2, 2025).

In co-production with Onassis Culture, the following films will be screened at the Onassis Cultural Center in their Greek premieres: Sacrifice by Romain Gavras (October 30, 2025), Broken Vein by Yannis Economides (November 24, 2025), How to Shoot a Ghost by Charlie Kaufman (December 10, 2025), and Gorgoná by Evi Kalogeropoulou, while in January 2026, the Onassis Foundation production The Heart of the Bull by Eva Stefanis, which observes Dimitris Papaioannou and his collaborators at close range during the preparation and tour of Transversal Orientation.

At the same time, films are being produced by Onassis Culture by Aristotelis Marangos (T[he] Last D[ays] of MyFat[her]), Tasos Langis (The Public Private House: 9 Turns for Athens) and Giorgos Telzidis on the life, work and collection of Yannis Petridis, while films by Argyris Papadimitropoulos (Oh how fun), Konstantina Kotzamanis (Titanic Ocean) and Domenikos Ignatiadis (Mary) are being produced in collaboration with the Onassis Foundation.

Onassis Culture embraces the process of creation, research, and artistic development by offering fellowships. It collaborates with important institutions such as the Greek Film Academy, the Thessaloniki Film Festival, the Drama Short Film Festival, and the “Premiere Nights,” and has established the Onassis Film Awards with the aim of promoting Greek cinema both within Greece and abroad. It issues an open call to Greek filmmakers for short films with the Open Call Big Short Films.

It organizes film tributes at the Onassis Cultural Center, so that we can see classic films with a new perspective, as well as screenings of award-winning short films on the Onassis Channel, so that everyone has access to independent productions.

Onassis Master Classes: The Onassis Cultural Center is opening up a dialogue between the international artists presenting their work on its stages this year and the local theater, dance, and film communities through a series of unique meetings. As an open field for discussion and experimentation, the master classes highlight the importance of creative exchange, bringing together renowned creators with professionals in the field and with audiences interested in creative thinking.

FULL PROGRAM

Theater

Julien  Gosselin, Le Passé

16 – 19 October 2025 І Main Stage

Robert Icke, Oedipus

20 November– 28 December 2025 І Main Stage

Tiago Rodrigues, The Lovers’ Dance

4 December 2025 – 18 January 2026 І Main Stage

22 – 25 January 2026 І Megaron, the Thessaloniki Concert Hall

Mariano Pensotti, Voracious Shadow

5 March – 26 April 2026 І Mikri Skini

Yannis Angelakas / Giorgos Gousis, The Little Prince’s Blues

12 March– 26 April 2026 І Main Stage

Tiago Rodrigues, La Distance

7 – 10 May 2026 І Main Stage

Tiago Rodrigues, By Heart

11 – 12 May 2026 І Main Stage

Dance

ODD

Onassis Dance Days

5 – 8 February 2026 Stegi

Marlene Monteiro Freitas: NÔT | Onassis Dance Days

6 – 8 February 2026 ІMain Stage

Exhibitions

Juegen Teller, you are invited

18 October– 30 December 2025 І Onassis Ready

Yorgos Lanthimos, Photographs

7 March – 17 May 2026 ІExhibition Hall

Tilda Swinton, Ongoing

2 May – 14 June 2026 І Onassis Ready

Music

 2025 Party

Children’s program by Bobos Arts Festival & Pink Wav, Metaman + special guests, Madam X, Buzz, Daniel Avery, Optimo

9.10.2025 | from 18:00 in the neighborhood of Stegi

STEGI.RADIO Take over

13 – 14 February 2026 І Stegi

Borderline Festival 2026

3 – 4 April 2026

The Boy, I’ve Never Travelled to Australia

5 & 6 June 2026 | Stegi

Cinema

Athena Rachel Tsangari, Harvest 

23 Septembr 2025 ІMain Stage

Kleber Mendonça Filho,The Secret Agent 

2 October 2025 І Main Stage

Roman Gavras, Sacrifice

30 October 2025 ІMain Stage

Yannis Economides, Broken Vain

24 November 2025 ІMain Stage

Charlie Kaufman, How to Shoot a Ghost 

10 December 2025 І Main Stage

Eva Stefani, The Bull’s Heart

January 2026 І Main Stage

Evi Kalogiropoulou, “Gorgonà”

TBC

Words & Thoughts

Wim Wenders

14- 16 November 2025 І Main and Mikri Stegi

Diane Morganaka Philomena Cunk

7 January 2026 І Main Stage

Miranda July

30 April 2026 І Main Stage

Gabor Maté

23 May 2026 І Main Stage

Onassis AiR Fellows

Onassis AiR Open Days

Autumn Open Days І November 7 & 8, 2025 І Roof

Spring Open Days І March 20 & 21, 2026 І Roof

Summer Open Days І June 19 & 20, 2026 І Roof

Digital Art

ONX/ AiR Open Days

ONX Show case May 26 І Rentis