18th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival –
Images of the 21st Century
11-20 March, 2016
PRESS CONFERENCE
LONG DIVE / A SECOND CHANCE /
GOLDEN DAWN: A PERSONAL AFFAIR
Images of the 21st Century
11-20 March, 2016
PRESS CONFERENCE
LONG DIVE / A SECOND CHANCE /
GOLDEN DAWN: A PERSONAL AFFAIR
As part of the 18th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, the directors Irina Boiko (Long Dive), Menelaos Karamaghiolis (A Second Chance) and Angelique Kourounis (Golden Dawn: A Personal Affair) attended a press conference on Saturday 12 March, 2016.
Vrezh Kirakosyan, the hero in Irina Boiko’s documentary is an Armenian self-taught writer and painter, who is disabled since childhood because of an incurable disease. He nevertheless married and had one child. The director followed him for two years, during which she also experienced the prejudice towards people who are different: “In Armenia, same as in Greece, there is no accessibility available. People with movement difficulties are doomed. Vrezh could not go anywhere, couldn’t even leave his house, until his friends gathered the money to build a ramp suitable for disabled access. But even when he went out, everywhere he went people would stare persistently. Young children were showing him, pointing their finger, and asking their parents: “Why is he like that?” In two years while I was in Armenia, I never saw anybody else on a wheelchair, not because there aren’t any, but because they live trapped inside walls”. Answering a question about what stroke her the most about her hero, Ms. Boiko noted: “Vrezh is one of the strongest male figures I have ever met in my life. He takes decisions, he makes a living for his family painting, he gives out an amazing energy and it is easy to understand why his wife fell in love with him”.
Menelaos Karamaghiolis, the director of the film A second chance took the floor and talked about how he came to making a film inside the Youth Detention Centre: “At first, I went as a volunteer, after a suggestion by some people in the National Museum of Modern Art. They wanted to help the children in the youth detention centre to become acquainted with modern art and find ways to deal with problems through art. Initially, I laughed at the idea, but then I was intrigued and this is how I found myself in a detention centre, which had previously declined my request to film there while I was filming J.A.C.E. There, I met Rokas, a big Lithuanian guy, who I had originally met three years ago for a documentary I did on mathematics. He had then won an award by the Mathematical Society». The film’s hero as depicted by the director is a child of a problematic family in Lithuania, a bad student, who was given in his country a suitcase with drugs and 10,000 dollars to transfer to Greece. He was immediately arrested and was brought to the detention centre, without knowing the language at all. Once there, he had to make the decision whether he would become a member of the detention centre gangs or change his life. He decided to seek for a second chance to life. “This detention centre was the first one to have a school. It started on a volunteer initiative by a private school owner, who managed to convince the Ministry of Education, and it now hosts a primary and secondary degree class with approximately 200 students. Within two and a half years, Rokas learned Greek, decided that he wants to study at the Polytechnic School and discovered he had unexplored talents, like in mathematics and chess, which he enjoys because it is the only game not based in luck. This child was defeated when arrested, but he dealt with this defeat to reshape his life”. Commenting on a statement by a vice public prosecutor for minors who says in the film that prisoners are deprived of freedom but should not be deprived of any other rights, Mr. Karamaghiolis stressed: “She shows boldness in this statement, while it is also self-judgmental to admit that in prison one is deprived of almost everything”. Discussing Rokas’ greatest fear, the director stressed: “Rokas’ biggest fear, as for every child in youth detention centres, is that they should return to prison”.
Next, Angelique Kourounis, the director of Golden Dawn: A Personal Affair took the floor. Asked about what initiated this documentary, she replied: “I have had an obsession with the fascist movements and totalitarian regimes for years. My grandmother started stone throwing against the Italians in Kalymnos and my father in law was a member of the French resistance, he chose fighting over putting on the yellow star. My partner is Jewish, my son is gay. I am a feminist and a daughter of immigrants. As soon as I returned to Greece, I was involved in the case of the Golden Dawn. I couldn’t understand how it was possible for this fascist formation and the newspaper "Stochos" with such racist headlines to exist. I could not understand how there is this party, openly operating since 1996, in Greece, a country which paid such a heavy price during the Occupation. I also wanted to understand what the members of this formation think, and what their voters think. Because, there are two categories: those who advocate their beliefs and those who voted for them as a result of the crisis”. Asked about the political developments in Europe and the rise of far-right parties, the director replied: “I work in the magazine Charlie Hebdo and from the beginning we knew that if these people and their followers were to seize power, they would rule on their own people, while the others would await exile and persecution, which is why we started collecting signatures to ban the French nationalist party. I am troubled by the rise of the far right, because it is a threat to democracy, which perhaps is not the best system, but it is what we have. There is no counterweight to the extreme right, on the contrary we see their ideas being adopted in Europe, without reaction. On the refugee issue, extremist views are adopted and the concepts of asylum, human rights and equality, which should be the basis of Europe, are lost. In 2017, in the second round of presidential elections in France, the rivals will most probably be Le Pen and Hollande. Our vote then should be "no to Le Pen".
