International Program
On Saturday, March 20th, directors Ramona Diaz, Ekaterina Eremenko and Ali Akyuz gave a press conference for their films, which are being screened in the International Section of the 6th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival.
Ramona Diaz: Imelda
The allure of Imelda Marcos was the inspiration for Ramona Diaz and the reason she decided to film her documentary. “She has an immense personality that captures you from the first moment; she’s like a train wreck: you can’t help but look at her”. As for her personal opinion about Imelda Marcos, Diaz said that she grew up during the 70’s and 80’s in a family that opposed the government and had an extremely negative opinion to begin with. Later, when in 1993 she met Imelda during the making of another film, her opinion shifted towards the better and she decided to look into the matter and examine her closely. She considers Imelda responsible for a number of wrongdoings in her country and believes that at some point she must face justice for everything she’s done. However, although Diaz disagrees with what Imelda has done, she believes she is an extremely intelligent and interesting woman. “People who are in government for long periods of time are essentially acting a role. Imelda has never stopped playing this role, perhaps because she has become one with it. She’s never alone, she needs to be surrounded by people”, said Diaz, trying to reveal Marcos’ real personality. As far as her film’s distribution, Diaz said that although she initially had troubles finding funds because of Marcos’ “anti-hero” reputation, many countries finally bought the film and it will travel to many festivals around the world.
Ekaterina Eremenko: Meistersinger: the sound of Russia
Eremenko’s film deals with the efforts of five families to win first prize in a canary competition. She had the idea from the time when, as a journalist, she was asked by a television station to cover a similar competition. Nevertheless, the film is a representation of modern-day Russian society. According to Eremenko, this holds true because of the fact that all of the film’s characters have powerful personalities and depending on the canary training method they use, they reveal an aspect of Russian society. Finally Eremenko said that she collaborated with her university and Discovery Campus, a European program, to secure the distribution of her film in N. Europe.
Ali Akyuz: Legendary girl of the skies: Sabiha Gokcen
Ali Akyuz’s film introduces us to an unknown celebrity –yet prominent and symbolic for Turkish society– Sabiha Gokcen, the first female Turkish pilot and the first female fighter pilot worldwide. Kemal Ataturk adopted Gocken and gave her her name, which means ‘girl of the skies’, although nobody at the time could guess that she would become a pilot. Ataturk believed that the meaning of life was in the skies and saw in Sabiha a positive quintessence for women worldwide. As for the making of her film and the research behind it, Akyuz said that she had no access to military material and she had to look very hard for information and collected 16mm and 35mm films from Moscow and photographs from the USA.
