PRESS CONFERENCE
NOTHING TO LOSE – SISTERS OF LILITH – ZERU - ZERU THE GHOSTS
On Wednesday, March 18, 2009 a press conference was given by the directors Emel Celebi (Sisters of Lilith), Jean Anri Meunier (Nothing to lose) and Yorgos Avgeropoulos (Zeru, Zeru the Ghosts).
After ten years of living in the country, Jean Anri Meunier decided to return to Toulouse and make a film about life in the city. But a chance encounter changed his plans. Walking along the street, the director heard someone shouting: “I’m 43 years old and homeless, but I’m bored, today is my birthday and I want to celebrate!” Phil, as his name was, became his film’s central character. In October 2006 Phil joined a homeless movement protesting the way they were dealt with by the police. In a few months, the movement that was named “the Children of Don Quixote” became very active, camping out in Toulouse’s main streets. “Until that time, my relationship with homeless people was the same as for all of us, I suppose. I might have given a coin to street musicians who may have been homeless, but I didn’t know anything about them. I wanted to take those faces out of the shadows in which they live and bring them out into the light”, the director noted.
The women Emel Celebi presents in her film Sisters of Lilith live in nature and draw their strength from it. “These women don’t need a man to feel strong. They draw strength from their work and from living in nature. They put flowers in their kerchiefs, not because they smell good, but as a reference to the matriarchal goddesses Lilith and Anana”, the director noted. “Women, whether they live in the country or in the city, work much harder than men. Through the stories of three women I wanted to speak about the strong and productive nature of women”, Emel Celebi added.
The documentary Zeru, Zeru the Ghosts is essentially a psychological thriller, according to its director Yorgos Avgeropoulos. “When Nina Maria Paschalidou came and told us that they are killing albinos in Tanzania and selling off their body parts, our first reaction was that these things can’t be happening. The reality was unexpected, horrible”. According to an insane superstition cultivated in the country over the last few years, the body parts of those born without melanin bring good luck and wealth. A macabre commercial trade developed because of this, which is now starting to spread to neighboring countries. “What I learned is that arguing with superstition is the hardest thing to do”, Yorgos Avgeropoulos noted. During shooting he was forced to use a hidden camera in order to record the buying and selling of an albino’s bones. “The hidden camera is like a knife, it can be used to slice bread or to kill”, Yorgos Avgeropoulos commented. After the 11th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival his film will also screen in Tanzania, where it has been officially invited by the country’s government.
