PRESS CONFERENCE
WAR ZONE: THE MIRACLE – ZORRO THE CAT
A Press Conference was held on Friday, March 19, 2010 during the 12th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival - Images of the 21st Century by Sotiris Danezis, journalist and writer of the film War Zone: The Miracle (directed by Dimitris Gerardis), and Selana Vrondi, director of the film Zorro the Cat.
Dimitris Gerardis’ film War Zone: The Miracle, written by Sotiris Danezis, documents the chronicle of the rescue of 24 year old Haitian Exandus Oismont Jean-Pierre, who survived 11 days under the rubble of a hotel which was destroyed in the catastrophic earthquake, while the government had already announced the termination of rescue efforts. The story made world news and international news agencies called it the “miracle” of Haiti. “Others passed by the spot before we did, and they heard the same stories about survivors in the rubble and they were jaded. We were ‘fresh’. As soon as we arrived we heard the story about this survivor and thought of checking it out”, Sotiris Danezis explained. Most of the film is devoted to the young man’s rescue, but after the film’s screening the audience was interested on the competition among the rescuers as to who would get credit. “The truth is that the first ones there were three Greek rescue workers, because they didn’t have heavy equipment. We started sending calls for help via Twitter, these were seen by the organizers of the French rescue team and they sent about forty people”, he noted. After the international arguments over who should get credit for the rescue, Danezis said: “I didn’t care who made the rescue, if it was Greece, France, China or Alaska. The important thing was that even though volunteers came to Haiti late, and even though the government claimed there was no chance of finding survivors, Oismond was saved”.
The journalist was in Haiti in 2008, and recorded the terrible conditions there for the “War Zone” series. He said: “What I saw now were the among the worst conditions I have ever seen, I have been left with very harsh images from this mission. I felt that death ruled over the landscape, I felt there was nothing I could do to help. In the end, we managed to do something concrete through our work for the first time”.
In her documentary Zorro the Cat, Selana Vrondi presents a portrait of Zorro, an independent alley cat living in the Psyrri area of Athens. “Zorro has his good points and his bad points. He loves the camera, takes big risks, lives adventures, has friends, girlfriends and enemies, he is a real hero that people can identify with”, the director said. She follows Zorro in an inhospitable urban environment and focuses on the environment itself. The Psyrri are was to be “transformed” into the Soho of Athens. Her film is not just the portrait of a cat, but that of a whole neighborhood, a small society as she lived it during filming.
