Images of the 21stCentury
March 14-23, 2014
LIVE STREAMING AFFECTION TO THE PEOPLE
On Thursday, March 20th, 2014 the Greek film Affection To The People by Vassilis Douvlis ended the successful series of screenings of the pioneering TDF initiative «Live Streaming Project – Live Streaming Documentaries".
For the fourth year, the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival implemented this program in collaboration with the Laboratory of Electro-Acoustic and Television Systems Laboratory at the Polytechnic School of Thessaloniki’s Aristotle University, under the supervision of Professor Yorgos Papanikolaou. A selection of TDF films "travels" to 5 towns in Greece: Rethymno, Larissa, Patra, Corinth and Rhodes - and in Nicosia, Cyprus, in collaboration with local Universities (TEI, TEI Thessaly, Greek Open University, University of the Peloponnese, University of the Aegean and the Frederick Institute of Technology Cyprus). Moreover, a pilot screening was held on Thursday for the first time in Syros, in collaboration with the Municipality of Syros. Please note that the Live Streaming Project transmits Festival screening of the 20:30 zone of the Olympion cinema.
Based on hitherto unknown archives of the junta's censorship of cinema during the period 1967 - 1974, the documentary Affection To The People by Vassilis Douvlis includes excerpts from about 70 movies, Greek and foreign, that have been victims of dictatorial cuts. Among them were political, artistic, and popular commercial films. Of particular interest is the extensive reference to the rationale of the censors themselves. Well-known directors such as Pantelis Voulgaris, Theo Angelopoulos and Costa Gavras, speak in front of the camera, remembering their personal adventures due to censorship.
After the documentary screening, director Vassilis Douvlis replied to questions both from the Olympion audience and from viewers from cities included in the live streaming project.
Asked about the research required for the film, the director said: "It took many years of research through very dusty material in the archives of the State, the Foreign Ministry and the Film Archive. We embarked on a grand adventure, tangled up in a vast search among moldy documents, while we kept finding boxes with new material. In many cases I did not want to erase the scars of the brutal intervention on the film and so I kept it as it was. "
Replying to another question about his decision to incorporate readings of excerpts on the rationale of the censorship committee, Mr. Douvlis stated that "The structure of the film is based right on the counterpoint of propaganda images of banned scenes." As for why they chose the period of the junta and not another era to refer to the phenomenon of censorship, the director said: "I didn’t begin to make a film about censorship. The issue arose when I accidentally found myself in front of this rich and hitherto unknown material. Of course, censorship existed before that time as well. The material, however, was huge anyway, so I had to focus on this period of history."
When asked by a viewer from Syros whether censorship during the dictatorship influenced the subsequent course of Greek cinema, the director said: "I believe that the prohibitions during the dictatorship helped Greek cinema to a degree, because they made it more political". Mr. Douvlis also noted that his documentary Affection to the People will be screened in April at the French Institute and the "Danaos" Cinema in Athens, while the Parliament Channel will host its first television screening.
With the support of OTE (Hellenic Telecommunications Organization)
