PRESS CONFERENCE
THE LAND OF THE WEEPING GODS/ IN COMPANY WITH KALLIYANIS/ THE MUSIC PATHWAYS OF SALONICA
The series of press conferences given by the directors whose films are being screened in the international program of the 13th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival – Images of the 21st Century began on Sunday, March 13, 2011. Participating were Eleni Vlassi (The Land of the Weeping Gods), Pedro Olalla (In Company with Kalliyianis) and Dimitris Papadopoulos from the Ciners8 team (The Music Pathways of Salonica).
The subject of Eleni Vlassi’s documentary The Land of the Weeping Gods is Spinalonga. The director, speaking about the film, noted: “The film doesn’t focus on the disease itself, since diseases have always existed and will continue to exist. It focuses on social isolation, , the stigma carried by these people even if they are cured and return to society.” Referring to what inspired her to make the film she said: “In 1998, while working in France as a journalist, I heard an otherworldly voice speaking in Greek about Spinalonga. It was the voice of Hansen’s disease sufferer Epaminondas Remoundakis, a well-known character on the island. Even though I come from Lasithi, I had not known about the inhospitable rock of Spinalonga until then. Hansen’s disease sufferers called it “the island of the angels”. I felt I had a duty to make a documentary and highlight what my main character denounces in the film: that we need to tell the truth, so that these people can be vindicated in our hearts”. The process of making the film was difficult, since the former Hansen’s sufferers didn’t wish to speak on camera. However, in 2009, Manolis Foundoulakis, one of the last people who had lived the drama of Spinalonga, decided to speak, even though in the end he never managed to see the film completed. Through him, the director managed to find other former patients and then secure archival material with patients’ testimony from 1974. She noted that the most moving fact was not what these people said about the illness, but that society cast them on that island to die. “Whoever went to Spinalonga faced a sign telling him to leave all hope at the entrance. But there were people such as Epaminondas Remoundakis who proved that life is stronger than anything; that even one person has the power to change things. In spite of all this, when the “miracle” of a cure happened, these people had the illusion that they would leave Spinalonga and become accepted. But they discovered that society never accepted them”, Ms Vlassi concluded.
In Company With Kalliyianis is the debut of writer and photographer Pedro Olalla. The film is about the life of the important painter Manolis Kalliyianis, who was never particularly well-known in Greece. The artist left his island, Mitilini, at the age of 17 and volunteered with the British air force during World War II. His plane was shot down but he survived, finding himself in the Middle East, South Africa, then England and France. There he managed to realize his life’s dream of being a painter. He traveled in the same circles as Matisse and Picasso, with the help of his fellow country man Stratis Eleftheriadis – Theriad. Olalla met the artist in 2008, when he was nearly 90 years old, and decided to make a cinematic portrait of him. “We began making the film focusing not so much on Kalliyianis' work, but approaching him from a more human perspective. What begins as a cinematic portrait develops into a film on life itself, on our confusion and surprise in the face of it. It was a challenge for me, since the action came first, then the camera, while the script came last, to give form to the documentary”, he explained. The film is also Manolis Kalliyianis’ last testament, since he passed away just before it was completed. Essentially, this is the testament of a man at the moment that he himself is aware that he is living the end of his life and evaluates it from this point of view, re-rating his experiences and his feelings”, Mr. Olalla noted.
Then the representative of the Ciners8 team, Dimitris Papadopoulos spoke. The team is participating in the 13th Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival with the film The Music Pathways of Salonica. The film attempts to record the variety that characterizes the Thessaloniki music scene, a city that has always been at the vanguard of Greek music. As the director explained, when asked about the thematic association with Fatih Akin’s film The Sound Of The City, “Before we started, we had indeed seen the film, and had it in mind, however we ended up making something completely different.” He added: “There is a dialogue developing about where this city is going, culturally. We wanted to show Thessaloniki’s music from behind the scenes, look at her excellent musicians who have been working for years under difficult circumstances”. The documentary is essentially a mosaic representing all the trends and movements of the Thessaloniki musical scene.
