10th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival –
Images of the 21st Century
March 7-16, 2008
PRESS RELEASE
PRESS CONFERENCE
RIGAS – LIGOURIS – FYLAKTOS – KESSISOGLOU
At noon on Friday, March 14, at the Olympion’s Green Room, a press conference was given by the directors Gerassimos Rigas (Parvas), Elefterios Fylaktos (The Archelon bubble), Nicos Ligouris (The Lovers from Axos) and Anna Kessisoglou (On the east side of my dream).
G. Rigas, director of the film Parvas, spent a year shooting his film, about the everyday life of the family of Parvas, known as Dimtri Giannakou, from Amorgos. “I became a part of their daily lives, their reality, and our relationship became more meaningful”, the director said, and added that what moved him to make the film was an image that had remained in his mind from some vacations he had taken on the island: “One dawn with much fog, I saw Parvas coming out of the mist, going to open his cafe”. He also spoke about the different philosophy about life that exists in areas such as the Cyclades Islands: “The wind is the major element there, and because of this people don’t speak very much. Their way of life hasn’t changed, values have remained constant for many years: the cultivation of the land, family, and community”.
Lefteris Fylaktos, director of the film The Archelon bubble, which deals with the lives of the volunteers of the Archelon Ecological Association, focused on how important a change of priorities and way of life is for the environment in which we live. “I myself was in a state of hypnosis, until I decided to make this documentary about volunteerism, and now I ask myself what kept me passive and why I didn’t become active much earlier”, he said. When asked if there is such a thing as objectivity in the documentary, E. Fylaktos declared that there is an ethical line that must not be crossed: “We must not sacrifice the essence of something for photography, for the impression. The essence can be expressed through other means”, he said in closing.
Anna Kessisoglou, director of the film On the east side of my dream, stated that the essence of a documentary is not so much its subject, but how many things one can say because of it. What she does, she commented, is to speak through her films about her position on things: “Documentaries are not reality itself, but part of it. It is necessary for the viewer to read between the lines, receiving only the important elements that they have to offer him”. Commenting on the ethical dilemmas which a documentary maker must face, A. Kessisoglou said: “We face harsh emotional situations, but we have no choice but to gather our strength, because it is possible that our films will benefit some people”.
Nicos Ligouris, director of The lovers from Axos, made a film about the love between Giorgos and Maria, an elderly couple living in a remote mountain village. “I met them by accident, but the breadth of Giorgo’s thought and fluency surprised me to such an extent that I came back to them many times”, the director noted.” 6 years passed before he proposed making this documentary to them. He didn’t need to try very hard to convince them, he revealed. He also spoke about the difficulties he faced, mainly with scenes that were emotionally loaded, while answering a question about the role a documentary can play he said: “It can work positively or negatively, it depends, just like any artistic product, on its merit”.
