PRESS CONFERENCE
CHILDREN IN HIDING /
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF CELSO JUNIOR
Directors Vassilis Loules (Children in Hiding) and Panayotis Evangelidis (The Life and Death of Celso Junior) gave a press conference on Monday, March 14, 2011, in the framework of the 13th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival. Their films participate in the TDF international program.
Loules’ documentary tells the story of five Jews, who had spent their childhoods in German-occupied Greece and were spared certain death thanks to the protection provided to them by Greek Christian families. The director was inspired to make the documentary after attending an exhibition with documents and photographs in 2004 at the Athens Jewish Museum. Loules had five protagonists, who were to become his daily companions during the three years of shooting. “It was easy to make them confide in me. What I tried to do, and was successful, was to take them back to that era, make them become the children they once were. This is in fact the major asset of the film - that they are so open in their recollections”, said the filmmaker.
His lens sheds light on unknown aspects of the story of Greek Jews at the time of the Holocaust and focuses on the lives of these young children, who were forced to grow up prematurely. “Children especially had to deal with a complex situation. Their life was a pendulum swinging between their natural need to run and play and the need to hide. They were forced to grow up before their time”, noted Loules. The testimonies included in the documentary are moving and take the audience back to the time of German occupation. In a characteristic scene, Roza, one of the protagonists, is hiding in a building at Tsimiski 133 Street (in Thessaloniki), watching from the window a group of Jews being led in formation. Among them she spots her father and grandmother. “The testimonies were deeply moving. I couldn’t stop myself from crying while shooting. I was trying to hide my emotions, to avoid influencing my interlocutor”, confessed the filmmaker. “The protagonists can endure a lot, they have seen even harder times, but this documentary takes them back to the past. All the guilt they had been avoiding by starting a new life, came back with a vengeance in the form of tormenting questions”, added Loules.
Evangelidis’ documentary narrates the life of artist Celso Junior, who has a boot fetish. This eccentric man lives with his husband in Switzerland and is the owner of a collection of more than 600 pairs of boots. “Many of these boots have been used only once, for example as a reminder of a sexual intercourse, while other pairs he wears more often”, said the director. Panayotis Evangelidis spent two weeks with the couple, recording their life and Celso Junior’s passion for boots. “I met him at a Festival in Lisbon and his fetish excited my imagination. I have a keen eye for special people, that don’t neatly fit in conventional categories”, noted Evangelidis.
Celso Junior acquired his boot fetish when he was only three years old, when a pair caught his eye in a storeroom. He was mystified by the shape and smell of the leather. “By definition, a fetish is something that allows a person to create an impenetrable world. The fetish can never betray him, or love him of course. The protagonist is not seeing a therapist for his fetish, but admits he lives in a paradox. He makes clear, however, that as a reward he is truly happy in his relationship with his husband and parents”, noted the filmmaker. “It is true that he leads a life full of paradoxes, but this is his own choice”, he said, adding: “Celso claims that he has chosen a life outside society. I believe that he would like to be loved - but he is not willing to make any concessions to acquire this”.
