PRESS CONFERENCE
DIMITRIS PAPADOULIS - THE MULTIPLE GIFT / HIPPIE HIPPIE MATALA! MATALA! / THE CHRONICLE OF AN EXTERMINATION / NEO-NAZI: THE HOLOCAUST OF MEMORY
Directors Stella Alisanoglou (Dimitris Papadoulis - The Multiple Gift), Yorgos Varelas (Hippie - Hippie Matala! Matala!), Chryssa Tzelepi / Akis Kersanidis (The Chronicle of an Extermination) and Stelios Kouloglou (Neonazi: The Holocaust of Memory) gave a press conference on Tuesday, March 19, 2013, in the context of the 15th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival.
Stella Alisanoglou’s documentary portrays doctor and writer Dimitris Papadoulis, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis 23 years ago. The director met Papadoulis through a mutual friend, when Papadoulis was looking for someone to make a digital copy of an old book review he had written. “I heard his voice for the first time when he called to thank me. We then kept in touch via Facebook and email -the internet is 90% of his world. During my test video with him, I knew this man had more to offer than the story of a person struggling with a health problem. His sense of humor and sophisticated self-sarcasm do not allow you to feel sorry for him. Besides, he can write voluminous books despite not having command of his arms”, said the director. Asked about when a filmmaker should turn his or her camera off, when recording very private moments and feelings, Alisanoglou replied: “He said ‘do as you like”. Oddly, this made my work even harder. I wanted to dive deep into his life, but without baring him naked, since he talked about sensitive matters, like love stories and pharmaceutical companies. When I showed him the final cut of the film and I asked him if he is ok with it, he replied, visibly moved: ‘Proceed by all means! I am a writer, I know what it means to expose yourself to the public’.
The internet also played a decisive role in Varelas’s film Hippie-Hippie Matala! Matala!. An old hippie from Germany, who had lived in Matala, Crete, started looking for his old companions through Facebook. He then organized a reunion in the caves of this small village in Crete. The director followed the event and his film examines the wider Hippie movement. One of the most interesting characters is Giorgis Germanakis, who passed away last January. He was 20 years old when the hippies discovered the village. “He remained a hippie for life. He could never go back after living in Matala and knowing the hippie ideal. Giorgis remained a 20-year-old boy to the very end”, said the director. Another interesting story revolves around Elmar, also a German, who was inspired by his experience in Matala to learn Greek and become a Modern Greek student at the University of Dortmund. Elmar attended the premier of the documentary at the 15th TDF, and thanked the Greek people “for everything they had offered him: their language, their hospitality, their culture, everything that made me the person I am”. Adressing a question about the nature of the hippie movement, Mr Varelas said: “You had the so called ‘freaks’, young people with restless spirits, who lived in a time of rapid social change and landmark events like the Vietnam War or the May 1968 protests, and were inspired by a nonconformist way of life. There were also travelers coming to Matala after spending time in Nepal and India. Then came the so-called ‘petty thieves’. But this is another Matala myth, labeling everyone a ‘hippy’. Commenting on present day Matala, Mr. Varelas said: “The place has changed dramatically. We found images of Matala from the 70s, when it was a utopian paradise, a fishing village of 30 people, next to the deep blue of the Libyan Sea, ideal for hippies looking for a return to nature. Today, it is a somewhat anarchically developed tourist area with lots of concrete. Its hippie history was used to attract tourism in the area”.
The historical memories of the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazi regime and their collaborators in Greece is the theme of the documentaries The Chronicle of an Extermination and Neonazi: The Holocaust of Memory.
In the Chronicle of An Extermination, the directors record the testimonies of survivors from the Hortiatis massacre. It was not always easy for the protagonists to relive those dreadful memories on camera. “Some were easy to approach, but for others, it was a very painful experience”, said Mrs. Tzelepi. One of the survivors narrowly escaped death twice, and many years later she received a phone call by a member of the collaborationist Security Battalions asking her for forgiveness. “This woman narrated events in detail, because she wanted to let younger generations know exactly what happened. She consciously chose the path of knowledge, hoping this will help us avoid a repetition of this tragedy in the future”, said the director. Asked about how the survivors feel about Greece’s current predicament, she said: “Some willingly avoid keeping up with developments. Others, like Mr. Alkis, who was a soldier with ELAS [the military arm of the Communist Party during the civil war], thinks he is experiencing a deja-vu. He is reliving events that had hurt him and is fearful that this time things could turn out even worse”. The directors explained that they decided to make the film because they wanted to preserve the memories and testimonies of people with first hand experience. “Because of the Civil War that followed the German Occupation, this issue was neglected. We believed it was very important to make those memories public, since Greek society has never debated this issue”, explained Mr. Kersanidis.
Stelios Kouloglou, in his documentary Neonazi: the Holocaust of Memory, compares the past with the present, presenting testimonies from witnesses and the views of young people. The director wanted to explore the feelings of young people living today in martyred villages like Distomo and Hortiatis. “In Distomo, young people have firsthand information, but they only know about their own village - maybe about Kalavryta as well. But they are ignorant when it comes to the role played by the Greek collaborators in the Nazi massacres. In Hortiatis, the holocaust monument omits any reference to the collaborationist security battalions, despite the fact that their members actually pulled the trigger while the Germans were watching”. According to Mr. Kouloglou, “we are still paying the price for the Axis Occupation and the Civil War. It is indicative that recently, in the village of Tsaritsani, the villagers sent off members of the [far right] Golden Dawn party, saying ‘you were the murderers’. These memories are still alive”. Asked when the director should turn his camera off, Mr. Kouloglou replied: “If your protagonist does not ask you to stop, you keep on filming. There are things that need to be captured on film”. Akis Kersanidis agreed: “The cameras are there to keep on filming. All important decisions are made in the editing stage. This is when you decide how you want to move your audience, avoiding extreme sentimentalities, but also without being too disengaged”.
Commenting on the role documentaries can play in preventing the repetition of the tragedies they narrate, Akis Kersanidis noted that films and documentaries do increase public awareness, but their influence is “negated by the mass media, which are more powerful in shaping pubic opinion”. Addressing the same issue, Mr. Kouloglou said: “It would be great if we could add a ‘preemptive documentary’ section to the Festival, that would help us avoid wars and disasters. But documentaries deal with things that have already happened, in the hope that they will not be repeated. Unfortunately, however, nations do not learn from their past mistakes, and history repeats itself. That said, civilization, despite stumbling on the way, does manage to move on”.
The films are part of the 15th TDF program, which is financed by the European Union’s Regional Development Fund for Central Macedonia, 2007-2013.
