PRESS CONFERENCE
SPOTLIGHT “DOCVILLE”
K. LEGAKI, ANG. KOVOTSOS, N. XYDI,
Y. MISOURIDIS, M. GASTINE
A Press Conference in the framework of the 14th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival was held on Friday, March 16, 2012, with the participation of the directors Kalliopi Legaki (Docville: 11, Andrianou St., Keratsini), Angelos Kovotsos and Natassa Xydi (Docville: Anapafseos St., Athens), Yiannis Missouridis (Docville: 280, Constantinoupoleos St., Thessaloniki) and Marco Gastine, the documentary series producer, on the occasion of the homonymous spotlight organized in this year’s festival. The spotlight’s final part is the film Docville: Syntagma Square, Athens by Katerina Patroni.
Present at the Press Conference was the deputy director of public relations of ERT (National Greek Television), Areti Kalesaki, who noticed: “Films such as those of the Docville series adorn and honor our program. Each one of them launches a discussion on modern cities, their problems, their people, their beauty and ugliness. In this without-precedent crisis we find ourselves experiencing, the production of series like this is not a luxury, but an absolute necessity. Congratulations to all of the filmmakers for their personal perspective and the sensitive observation of the modern urban landscape and its invisible heroes”.
Talking about her documentary, Andrianou St., Keratsini, which takes place in a nursing home, Kalliopi Lagaki, said among others: “In this center I met very old people characterized by strength, passion and love for life, people who overcome loneliness through solidarity and mutual help. Personally, I chose to show you the oldest couple accommodated there. I had much to receive from my relationship with them. Every morning we used to arrive there, all the team, still sleepy, bored, maybe a little melancholy too, only to meet those people that were happy. That fact made us wonder about who the young and who the old is, ultimately”. Next, Mrs. Legaki explained that, despite their optimism, those people are directly affected by the crisis. “They are worried about their children and try to support them as much as they can. They belong to a generation that is used to live with next to nothing, anyway. Besides that, they also undertake a variety of other actions: through their common fund they try to help people who have no money at all and they make sure to fund it through selling handicrafts and jams. The answer to the crisis is visible in this small shelter’s self-sufficiency”, underlined the director.
Yannis Missouridis spoke next, about his film 280, Constantinople St., Thessaloniki which records the daily life of people working in Zygos, Thessaloniki’s legendary and seedy live-music club. The director said that this is a typical place in the Greek urban landscape. He said: “We live in a city, and think we know it well. The reality is that we only know our own microcosm, being unaware of things happening just around the corner. In these terms, I wanted to dive in a world that repelled me, and, I finally met people not so different from me”. Mr. Missouridis commented on the fact that some people, in this period of economic hardship, choose to spend the little money they have in such nightclubs by saying: “Even during a crisis, our need for relief remains. Other people choose to go shopping, others drinking and dancing. I don’t think the nightclub is a more corrupt or trashy choice. What matters is to accept that this could be a possible version of our own choices”.
Angelos Kovotsos and Natassa Xydi observed the microcosm of the First Cemetery of Athens where they filmed their documentary, Anapafseos St., Athens. “At first, our intention was to present those who deny the acceptance of loss. Soon, we realized that the cemetery doesn’t have to do so much with the dead, but with the living”, noticed Angelos Kovotsos. Natassa Xydi added that although a cemetery isn’t a familiar place for most of people, “it remains a very lively and pleasant place for some people, sort of a village. People who work there have their favorite habits, spend a lot of their time together and are close to each other. It’s a place of contradiction. You can see a woman crying over her son’s grave and a little further the workers drinking ‘tsipouro’ while taking a break between funerals”.
According to Angelos Kovotsos the drama effect in this documentary is hidden in the contradiction between the cemetery’s spirituality and the industry behind it: “The industry that has to do with the graves’ tombstones, the flowers, the disinterment, which is the film’s hardest part, is a procedure one finds anywhere, even in a factory. On the other hand, one should also take in mind the factor of accepting reality. The drama is born by these two facts. From this point onwards, the point is how to balance and ease the unbearable pain the cemetery sometimes carries in the film”.
Last, spoke the Docville series producers, Marco Gastine. “The idea for Docville didn’t occur because of the crisis. It was born 45 year ago during a different crisis, in May 1968. At that time the most popular tv show on French state television was La Vie des animaux (The life of Animals). When the people working there occupied the place, they said the time had arrived for the Life of Humans. That’s what I wanted. To show the life of people we pass by every day and never look at. Finally, the idea to make Docville reemerged when in a film club in Athens, I met some of the most talented documentary directors”, said among other things Mr. Gastine.
Spotlight “Docville” is one of the Greek films of the 14th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, co-financed, among other festival’s actions, by the European Union-European Regional Development Fund, in the frame of Regional Operational Programme of Central Macedonia 2007-2013.
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