10th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival –
Images of the 21st Century
March 7-16, 2008
PRESS RELEASE
MARIA LEONIDA – DIMITRIS VERNIKOS – MANOLIS DIMELLAS ALIDA DIMITRIOU PRESS CONFERENCE
The directors Dimitris Vernikos (The Mirror and the Knife), Alida Dimitriou (Birds in the Mire), Manolis Dimellas (Live and let live) and Maria Leonida (My First Time), gave a press conference on Thursday, March 13 at the Olympion’s Green Room.
Maria Leonida’s film is about the time of her first pregnancy and the conflicting emotions a woman feels when she enters this process. “It is a clearly personal subject. I gave my personal experience, but I’ve been told that many women identify with it”, the director said. “The dominant feelings are those of doubt and intense fear. What I noticed during the screening of my film at the Festival, which has touched me, is that women of different ages and mindsets identified with the film and no longer felt guilty because of the sense of failure that women feel at that stage in their lives”, she added. She noted that these days there are fashions for everything, even motherhood, but in spite of this, there are many women who don’t think the whole thing is “rosy”.
Dimitris Vernikos, sketches the musical genius of Manos Hatzidakis in his film The mirror and the knife. Speaking about the difficulties he faced, he said that they mainly had to do with gathering and arranging his material: “It took quite a few years to research the subject fully, because aside from his talent, I wanted to bring to light Manos’ personality”. He also declared that he finds it difficult to answer whether Hatzidakis would have liked his film, although he did note that he tried to give a clear picture of his personality. What he finally discovered about the Greek composer was, as he said: “he was very faithful to what he believed, right up to the end”.
Manolis Dimellas, in his film Live and let live, tells the story of Dimitrius Tsafentas, who assassinated the creator of Apartheid in South Africa. “Whether he was a madman or a hero has not been established yet. It depends on the ethics of each person as to what answer he can give”, the director said. The reason he made the film was that he wanted to show that “the system itself could eat, bury and throw away someone when he is no longer of use”.
Birds in the Mire is the title of Alida Dimitriou’s filim. The film is about the participation and contribution of women to the Resistance during Occupation. “The memories these women carry after a half century have not faded. They still suffer and have never gotten over a sense of dread”, A. Dimitriou said. “I understand this feeling and at the same time I regret I wasn’t 7-8 years older so that I could have participated in the struggle with them”, she added. Referring to younger generations, Ms Dimitriou said that it is important for them to know history, but she doesn’t consider them any less brave. “History is made with the soul, and not with the mind”, she noted in closing.
