Images of the 21stCentury
March 14-23, 2014
PRESS CONFERENCE
TIME FOR HEROES / DOLLARS FOR A SAINT /
LOUIS, 7 TIMES YOU FALL, 8 TIMES YOU GET BACK ON THE HORSE
A press conference was held on Thursday, March 20th as part of the 16th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival. Present were directors Avra Georgiou (Dollars For A Saint), Yorgos Zervas (Louis, 7 Times You Fall, 8 Times You Get Back On The Horse), Kalliopi Legaki and Angelos Kovotsos (Time For Heroes) as well as Roviros Manthoulis, an important contributor to Time for Heroes.
Avra Georgiou’s documentary Dollars For A Saint focuses on the five days of Dionysian revelry that take place on the occasion of the St. Symios’ feast, which takes place every year at Pentecost in Messolonghi, with the participation of local people and gypsies. The director said she spent years looking for customs with visible Dionysian elements about which she had read during her studies, and she finally found them at this festival. "It is not folkloric in the sense of reproducing the past in the present, but rather it is something alive. People wait for this festival all year long; it is the feast of the poor and of the fishermen“, Ms Georgiou said. During the festival, residents do an ecstatic dance through the village streets and give money to the musicians – who are exclusively gypsy. They support their family for the rest of the year with this money. "Money changes hands at an ecstatic level and this tradition supports this coexistence of locals and gypsies", said the director. She added: "This traditional celebration is multileveled. It has also been established that on the Holy Spirit day gypsy children are baptized by the hundreds, an act of acceptance and integration into the local community. "In Messolonghi”, as Ms Georgiou noted, “there is a special "treaty" regarding the above issue, as there may not be an "organized social infrastructure that embraces gypsies, but there is consensus. One accepts the other with all their diversities”. The director also commented that the film took ten years to complete, as it was co-produced by ARTE and ERT, the latter of which, as Ms Georgiou said, "did not honor their contract."
In the documentary Louis, 7 Times You Fall, 8 Times You Get Back On The Horse by Yorgos Zervas, the protagonist Leonidas Lambrou may be 86 years old, but he is full of joie-de-vivre. "He is a man from another era, he has old values ??such as dignity and faith in his fellow man, but he nevertheless lives in perfect harmony with contemporary society. He uses a computer, makes plans for the future and is always in motion," the director noted. Born in 1928, he is well aware of all the historical events of the past century, the ambivalence and conflicts they caused him. Today he feels independent of all that. "Louis – as his friends call him - is still an active citizen and formulates opinions on all matters. When he meets with his gang of pensioners under the tree, while they discuss stereotypical issues such as pensions, the political parties etc., Louis talks about what he has discovered on the internet, such as a documentary about the philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis," described the director. As for young people, Louis says that "you can’t remain passive while all this is taking place, you have a responsibility to your children." Louis inherited his love for technology from his father, a self-made merchant who had a department store that sold all sorts of things, from stationery to cameras and gramophones. When the director asked him why he hadn’t acquired a camera, Louis remembered that he did actually have a super 8 camera with which he filmed some family moments, but which he had not seen since. He saw these scenes again after fifty years, while Yorgos Zervas filmed him, so as to record his reactions. Scenes from these films were added to the documentary and enriched the delightful portrait of Louis.
Kalliopi Legaki’s and Angelos Kovotsos’ documentary Time For Heroes focuses on yet another charming personality, which comes from a completely different background. Also present at the press conference was the great Greek author Roviros Manthoulis, who in the film meets with Elias Demetracopoulos. The latter is a US- based journalist who dedicated the majority of his life to the struggle against the military dictatorship. He is responsible for revealing the Greek aspect of the Watergate scandal and for brining on a lawsuit against the CIA. Mr. Manthoulis had met him earlier, while collecting material for his documentary on the Greek civil war. In 2009 Mr. Manthoulis proposed making a documentary about the life of Demetracopoulos to the two directors, and as they said "we accepted because the story is unsettling. The issue touches upon hot topics in Greek history and comes right up to today. Also, Robert Manthoulis has the ability to make Demetracopoulos confide in him. “We handled the material during the editing process with great care, with great respect for these people and in order for young people to understand the story and its aftermath." On his part, Mr. Manthoulis noted: " Demetracopoulos is an unconstrained man who believes in the truth, which is not always the case with reporters. He concerned himself Top of Form
with what he thought was wrong in politics. He dared to deal with the betrayal of Gorgopotamos, did everything he could to shake off the dictatorship. He never stopped." Ms Legaki said: "The whole film focuses on how one’s personality may have a role in shaping history – especially today, when, apart from the economic crisis, we are also experiencing a spiritual crisis and many people are looking for the Messiah. Today there are no epic heroes as in the time of Homer. We live in another era. People of dignity and courage, people who by their actions change things - they are the heroes. These persons can help change history, beyond politics and politicians." Mr. Kovotsos noted: "Our goal was for the film to acquire the style of a political thriller at the level of structure, script and dramaturgy, and to link the issue with today, so there are some scenes in the beginning and at the end where the crisis is mentioned in the news, such as the closure of ERT. Since ERT closed and the debt to film directors was transferred to the Ministry of Finance, Greek documentaries are in a horrible state. Producers and filmmakers are on the brink of bankruptcy. Of the 60 Greek films participating in the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival 90% of them are self financed. I do not know how to endure, I do not know if we will be here next year. On his part , Mr. Manthoulis said: "I am glad that there is the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival. When I returned from America none of the producers and directors here cared for this kind of art, because the documentary is a kind of art. I should also note that the fact that a film is made without actors does not mean that it is a documentary, it may be just reportage. We used to struggle to convince people, even government agencies, to make documentaries. Today we find ourselves amidst hundreds of documentary makers and I think that through quantity we also find quality."
