(Hail Arcadia / Leaving Is Living / A Place for Eveyone)
As part of the 17th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, the directors Filippos Koutsaftis (Hail Arcadia), Laura Maragkoudaki (Leaving Is Living) and Angelos Rallis & Hans Ulrich Go?l (A Place For Everyone) attended a Press Conference on Saturday March 14, 2015.
The documentary A Place for Everyone examines reality today in a village in Rwanda, two decades after the genocide. As Angelos Rallis explicated, Rwanda’s genocide “presents certain particularities, in comparison to other genocides or The Holocaust. It took place between people that were neighbors and any reconciliation will have to take place between neighbors. It’s a constant process which takes place in their everyday lives”. The two directors visited the village over four years and filmed before and after the memorial ceremony for the victims of the genocide, documenting conversations between survivors and killers “to see how they could co-exist”, as they explained. ‘We didn’t want to make another film about genocide, but rather a film about reconciliation and what kind of impact events that took place 20 years ago may have on today’s twenty year-olds”, Go?l noted.
As he explained, the process takes place on two different levels: “On a personal level there is no forgiveness. On a societal level there is a strong political reconciliation”. Despite the criticisms that this reconciliation is forced, the reason why it needs to happen is understandable, since it is a society that “lost its happiness and trust and was no longer carefree. Citizens don’t talk to each other sincerely any more”, Go?l pointed out. “Hostilities between the two tribes in Rwanda have existed for centuries, so it was difficult to change the situation in 20 years’ time”, Rallis added. In the film, a young Hutu boy has a relationship with a Tutsi girl. Mixed weddings are a taboo subject in the small village. There are deeply rooted traditions and customs. The wise-men of the two tribes must meet to decide if the wedding is acceptable,” Rallis added. “These taboos exist and, from a young age, children are brought up differently and form social and friendly relationships based on their tribes”, Go?l said. The situation in the country today is summed up in a quote by Go?l at the end: “There could have easily been a question mark at the end of the film’s title”.
Springtime poaching, which continues to exist as a custom in the Ionian islands and is passed down from generation to generation is the main subject of Laura Maragkoudaki’s documentary Leaving Is Living. The film was made the Greek Ornithological Society suggested its creation, as part of an international campaign (with institutions in Spain and Italy) to raise awareness about poaching in the Mediterranean. In the case of the Ionian islands, this springtime tradition is the cause for conflict not only between poachers and turtle-doves but also between the islands’ inhabitants. The director chose a humorous way of telling her story: “By using humor, I wanted to take a friendlier approach and create a framework for dialogue. We were lucky since we came across a few self-deprecating people. However, they are fully aware of the damage they are doing.” During filming, circumstances weren’t always ideal. “We filmed what they would let us film. In Antipaxos they blocked us with motorbikes and cars. We were surrounded and threatened.” In the end, negotiations were successful and everything was fine. According to Ms. Maragkoudaki “this particular situation can be interpreted in terms of male culture, which is preserved among young males. Only education can change things. The repression of this phenomenon hasn’t succeeded on the islands, because everyone knows one another. The only way is to change the consciences of young children.”
Filippos Koutsaftis’ documentary Hail Arcadia takes us to a different part of Greece: on a perambulation around the villages of Tegea, and on a quest to find identity. As in his previous documentary Mourning Rock, “we attempted to see places in a different way, not merely documenting and describing, but rather seeking their true identities”. As he explained, “Finding these roads was a part of my discovering my own identity”. Koutsaftis chose Arcadia coincidentally, because of funding made available by the charitable Michael Stasinopoulos - Viohalko Foundation. “The documentary was filmed over the period of a few years in Tegea, where once there were 18 villages with very few inhabitants and a whole lot of history. The Temple of Alea Athena is also located there, and many other enchanting mythological features. Beyond the historical and mythological framework of antiquity, Arcadia is also connected to a myth that traveled here from the West, the myth of Enlightenment. Prosperous Arcadia symbolized Heaven on Earth and innocent love before original sin. In fact, the Enlightenment intellectuals never visited Arcadia and this myth never took root in Greece”, Mr. Koutsaftis noted. In the film, time holds a special dimension. The director observes how the seasons, the landscape and the people change. “Firstly, I give myself time. My own inadequacy makes me do it, to see things more clearly”, he explains. Koutsaftis added that he began preparing the film “before the word ‘crisis’ entered our vocabulary, but even then certain elements connected to it were blatant”.
The director explained: “This place has been abandoned by the young and in the villages there are very few elderly people left, while agricultural production is minuscule, even though it could be much greater. The people of this region turned their backs on the area and, as a result, it lost its identity. These are signs of the times, which to a certain extent, led to what we call ‘crisis’ today. Arcadians left as mercenaries in the old days, then they immigrated to the USA and Australia. Today the void is filled by workers and farmers from neighboring countries that inhabit these villages.”
