10th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival –
Images of the 21st Century
March 7-16, 2008
PRESS RELEASE
PRESS CONFERNENCE
LOVE AND SEX IN CHINA – DIVORCE ALBANIAN STYLE – ETEL ADNAN: WORDS IN EXILE
On Saturday, March 15, at the Olympion’s Green Room a press conference was given by the directors Annamaria Gallone (Love and sex in China), Adela Peeva (Divorce Albanian style) and Vouvoula Skoura (Etel Adnan: Words in Exile).
Love and sex in China follows Yang Li Na, a young Chinese girl trying to deal with the crisis her marriage is going through. The film follows Yang through her wandering through the fascinating contradictions of a country changing at a dizzying speed. Annamaria Gallone, the director, said she was excited her film is making its international premiere at the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival. “What I’m interested in showing are the strong feelings caused by the game of attraction and the intensity of passion”, the director noted. She added that what was most difficult about shooting in China is the fact that it is difficult for people there to open up and speak about their feelings. Commenting on how relationships have changed between people today, A. Gallone said: “I believe that people are rushing to have everything, and they end up having no time for love”. She then revealed that she would prefer to change the film’s title to The Moon and the Wind Last Forever, a phrase that a Chinese emperor had tattooed on the bodies of the women in his harem. Speaking about women documentary directors, A. Gallone noted that what makes them different from their male colleagues is the different point of view they have on things, which stems as much from their female nature, as from the deeper bond they manage to create with the characters in their films.
Vouvoula Skoura, with her film Etel Adnan: Words in Exile creates the portrait of an outstanding personality, the Greek-Syrian poet and painter Etel Adnan. “Etel Adnan is incredibly intelligent and has an indescribable emotional world”, the director said, speaking of her “heroine”. She added: “The most important thing in this film is the anti-dogmatic nature of Etel’s opinions”. Regarding the difficulties women directors face in the documentary field, Ms Skoura said: “I live in a democratic family and I do whatever I want to do. Leaving aside financing difficulties, which everyone faces, I believe that we women simply make things with more sensitivity”.
Adela Peeva said that she discovered the subject of her film during the shooting of another film in Albania. A man approached her and confided his story to her. Divorce Albanian style reveals the experience of thousands of families who had to divorce under pressure from the Hoxa regime. Albanians married to foreign women were forced to divorce by the state, and then the women were deported. “One of the 3 ‘leading characters’ of the film has not seen his child for 30 years”, the director said. Speaking about the trust her characters had in her, A. Peeva noted: “It was simply the right time for them to tell their story. They wanted to speak because there were many people who suffered this way. They trusted me because I wasn’t making this film to further my career, but because they felt I was really interested”. Regarding the difficulties faced by women directors, A. Peeva said that she grew up in Bulgaria and never felt discriminated against because of her sex. But she commented that she has never met women in high positions in the field of cinema. Finally, she noted that very possibly the documentary field is thought of as a male field, because it demands physical stamina and strength, and is very competitive.
