In Franco Rossi's 1968 television adaptation of Homer's Odyssey, the shipwrecked Ulysses reaches Scheria, a mythical island at the edges of the known world. Welcomed by King Alcinous, he is questioned by Queen Arete, who asks him to reveal his identity and recount his journey. Her questioning introduces an ambiguity at the heart of hospitality: the stranger may be someone in need of protection, but also someone whose arrival threatens the security of those who receive him.
Arete's Question revisits this ancient encounter through a fragmented visual narrative, interweaving scenes from Rossi's adaptation with contemporary footage of migrant rescue missions in the Mediterranean. Myth and documentary briefly occupy the same space, revealing how questions of belonging, identity and otherness continue to shape the experience of crossing borders.

The film culminates in a digitally simulated wave suspended above a seascape filmed from the northern coast of Kos, Greece, in 2015. Across the water lies the Turkish peninsula of Bodrum, one of the departure points for people seeking passage into Europe.

Between the simulated wave and the real coastline, the Mediterranean emerges as both a geographical boundary and an imagined space, where the promise of refuge remains inseparable from uncertainty.
The film combines archival television footage, contemporary documentary imagery and CGI. Its final sequence juxtaposes a computer-generated fluid simulation with footage recorded during fieldwork on Kos in 2015.