PRESS CONFERENCE
CAMINO MUSICAL - 9 DAYS OF GALICIAN MUSIC/SKAPETA/
THEY GLOW IN THE DARK / MUSIC VILLAGE
The round of Press Conferences for the anniversary edition of the 15th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival began on Sunday, March 17, 2013. Present were directors Andreas Siadimas (Music Village), Eviroula Dourou (Camino Musical - 9 Days Of Galician Music), Panayiotis Evangelidis (They Glow in the Dark) and Menios Karayiannis (Skapeta).
Andreas Siadimas’ documentary takes place in the village of Agios Lavrendios on Mount Pelion, where three friends created the Music Village in order to bring together an international community where musical education is innovatively developed by means of a collective shared musical experience. “It’s something unique. Agios Lavrendios is a village that has preserved its medieval architecture without interventions. Every August, when the musical meeting takes place, nature blossoms wildly. It is a unique sound scape, which John Cage would envy. I happened to be there for another documentary on winter swimmers, and I saw the activities, dances and improvisations. The village of 150 people itself couldn’t have been absent from this interaction. When 500 to 1,000 people descend on them every summer, it does something to the village. Most of the locals are friendly toward the event, most make friends at the Music Village, some are annoyed. It’s all part of the game”, the director noted. Commenting on a character’s statement that “we let go of our horror here”, Mr. Siadimas explained that he didn’t mean to make another film about the crisis. “This is a film about the relentless pace of contemporary cities in a village where others experience nature and others find an excuse to go wild. I wanted to make a film about the Greece of today and for me, this is an optimistic film.”
A group of students from the Department of Film Studies of Thessaloniki’s Aristotle University participated in the making of Camino Musical - 9 Days of Galician Music. This was a 9-day trip to the city of Santiago de Compostela, the capital of the autonomous community of Galicia in northwestern Spain. Director Eviroula Dourou lived in Santiago studying cinema as an Erasmus student at the city’s university. “People in Galicia have a different way of life in order to support their traditions. This area is very different from central Spain, Madrid. And their language resembles Portuguese. It is one of the poorest areas of Spain, and for the residents, music is a way to keep their traditions, their communication with foreigners”, Ms Dourou said. Galicia, along with Catalonia and the Basque region is part of the Spanish areas that are demanding their independence, a political dimension to which the film makes a small reference. “People there don’t communicate easily, they are not particularly open with strangers. Of course we did manage to communicate with them and during filming there were even political discussions, but I preferred to focus on the entertainment aspect”, the director noted.
In the film They Glow in the Dark, Michael and Jim, two middle-aged gay friends and former lovers, AIDS carriers, get together again after 20 years and decide to live together in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina. Panayiotis Evangelidis knew Michael from the time that he lived in Athens, but didn’t know Jim. “A few years ago Michael sent me his autobiography, and this is why I decided to make the film. These people, whose lives are so uncertain, are trying to build a life with as few compromises as possible. They are trying to create a small work of art in a life with very specific boundaries”, Mr. Evangelidis stressed. As he says, both characters are themselves in the film, with no posing, without trying to prove anything. “They are people with an impressive past. Each of them has a different background. Michael had a difficult childhood, while Jim comes from a normal family, the sort that makes one worry about their vote in America”, the director said. As he said, his documentary flirts with fiction. “Out of 50 hours worth of material I wrote my own script about their lives. Since I come from the publishing world, the life stories of people excite me. I was very drawn to these two, who have such strong stories behind them”. Regarding the fact that shooting took place in 2010, after hurricane Katrina, the director said: “I didn’t go to make a film about New Orleans. As Jim says, New Orleans is a city you go to in order to complete your self destruction, it is a city that sucks you in”.
Menios Karayiannis chose the word “Skapeta” as the title of his film on the life of Christos, a man living cut-off from society in a village with no other inhabitants, without electricity, water or telephone. “Skapeta means “I’m getting out of here”, I’m disappearing, out of sight” the director said. He shot the film by himself, without a crew, living with Christos for six months. “When I asked him if I could make a film he told me ‘do whatever you want’. Gradually, a relationship of trust was built between us. I made the film because of the need to record something that is being lost. This man and the environment he lives in are a rare phenomenon. I wanted to explore how one can stand such loneliness. On the other hand, I present a man who has a different relationship to his environment. Living with him, the film itself, poses existential questions on what things we really need, and on life and death” Mr. Karayiannis noted. Among other things, the film touches on the subject of hypocrisy, which is often hidden in the relationship between modern man and his environment. For example, while Christos lives in harmony with his animals, he won’t hesitate to slaughter them if needed. “If we see a sheep being slaughtered we cry, while at the same time we think it is delicious. Christos takes care of his sheep, he speaks to them, he knows each and every one – but he doesn’t hesitate to slaughter them, if it’s necessary”, the director explained.
Then the directors responded to the question of how they handled the subject of their characters’ privacy in their films. “The people who go to Agios Lavrendios get carried away by alcohol, gayety, eroticism, things that they often want to keep off camera. But you win trust”, Mr. Siadimas said, while Ms Dourou noted: “Aside from the ten days of shooting, I made sure to develop a rapport with the people of Galicia. They were impressed by the fact that someone from Greece wanted to show their culture to the world”. Mr. Evangelidis stressed that “what is important is what the person allows you to say and what you allow yourself from the material you have shot. There is a give and take, it is a complicated reality in which you are responsible for many ethical dilemmas”, while Mr. Karayiannis commented: “Since it was impossible to use a crew for the film, aside from trust issues other, practical matters came up. Sometimes I had to leave the camera and go help Christos”.
The Greek films program of the 15th TDF is financed by the European Union’s Regional Development Fund for Central Macedonia, 2007-2013.
