AGON: Film as investigation, storytelling as practice

LUDOJ 2024: An imagined Olympic Games deprived of a live audience, where sport events take place within soundstages designed to feature a new layer of information: sound.

As the fictional Olympic Games of Ludoj 2024 approach, the film AGON follows the trajectories of three athletes preparing and competing in rifle shooting, fencing and judo. These women are portrayed against the rhetoric of global cooperation and collegiality – tightly controlled by strict competition rules, governing bureaucracies, national team regulations, training regimes, bio-enhancement technologies, safety protocols, ranking systems, equipment standards, anti-doping, branding guidelines, and sponsorship contracts.

Informed by the historical figures of Joan of Arc, Cleopatra and Russian cavalry officer Nadezhda Durova, AGON explores a contemporary account of the contradictions of these sports, which began as a practice for wartime in peacetime, as their disciplines are institutionally sanitised and recast as wholesome global entertainment and ultimately dematerialised altogether in new digital arenas.

Giulio Bertelli and Michael Rock will be in conversation about the making of AGON and will discuss their processes, their working methods and inspirations.

Giulio Bertelli is the writer-director of the movie AGON (2025). He is the founder of OKOMdsu, a research and design studio, and most recently launched Akta, a freeze-dried food company. He is a professional offshore sailor, involved in the technical side of performance sailboat development. As a former student and then visiting lecturer at the Architectural Association (AA), Giulio focuses on the relationship between filmmaking, architectural design and scriptwriting.

Michael Rock is a founding partner at 2x4 in NYC, where he leads projects for Apple, Nike, Prada, Chanel, JPMorganChase, Google, and many others. He is an adjunct professor of Brand Strategy at the Yale School of Management, and has held positions at RISD, Yale SOA, Columbia GSAPP, Harvard GSD, and the Jan Van Eyck Academie.

Image: © AGON 2025

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