Costume drama; With a nod to the sixties, an artist reimagines a neoclassical painting in modern Greece.(Eve Sussman)

Byline: Carol Kino

Eve Sussman first made waves in the art world when her lush video 89 seconds

at Alcazar was unveiled at the 2004 Whitney Biennial. The ten-minute piece, based on Velazquez's painting Las Meninas (c. 1656), uses exacting period detail to bring the Spanish Infanta and her retinue to life. "On the surface, it's very, very beautiful, seductive, and accessible," says Whitney curator Chrissie Iles. "But when you go underneath the quiet spectacle of it, there are a lot of interesting ways in which she's unfolding the narrative." Sussman's new film, The Rape of the Sa_bine Women, also began with a painting-Jacques-Louis David's 1799 The Intervention of the Sabine Women. But rather than setting the scene in ancient Rome, the 45-year-old artist shot her film in modern-day Greece and Berlin, and based her aesthetic on the clean, stylized look of 1960s New Wave cinema. The feature-length work premieres at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival in Greece this month before coming to New York, where it will be shown by Creative Time during the 2007 Armory Show.

Born in London and raised in Turkey, India, and Massachusetts, Sussman originally considered starting in classical times and moving forward through history. But when she and her ensemble arrived in Athens, they were struck ...