19th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival
3-12 March, 2017
DIRECTORS’ QUOTES OF THE DAY
Saturday March 11, 2017
The Greek and foreign directors who attend this year’s edition talk about their films which are screened today at the 19th TDF:
Andreas Lentakis – A Romantic Fighter by Menos Deliotzakis
“I believe there is a need to return to the political documentary. One can observe over the past few years a tendency to recycle old ideologies: the rise of fascism in Europe, something that was unthought of until a few years ago, whereas in the Soviet Union one can find a small tendency to revive communism. Through the struggles, the general moral stance, the political practices and the ideas of Andreas Lentakis, we can spark the return to real political action”.
My Homeland’s Flag Is Blue… by Stelios Charalambopoulos
“The history of this village in the 20th century is a miniature reflection of the Greece over the years. The things that happened there pretty much also happened in other regions of the country: the war with the Italians and the occupation, as well as the first migration flows to Australia and America. As this is my place of origin, I have been recording all of the above within a time period of 15 years. Observing the life of the village’s inhabitants turned into a documentary which shows that history repeats, making references to our times”.
Remembrances by Nikos Kavoukidis
“I think that Greek society today should be deeply concerned regarding the fundamental events of its contemporary history. As an image person I strongly believe in its power, and since many things are not taught in schools, there is an important archive of historical memories, 80% of which has never been screened. On the one hand, this documentary takes on the perspective of the people recording sociopolitical issues with a cinematographic aesthetic, and on the other hand, instead of voice over I used verses of our great poets which were set to music by others and I made it into an image”.
Sacred Water by Olivier Jourdain
“When portraying sexuality in Africa and Rwanda in particular, we tend to think about rape, violence and Female Genital Mutilation. I wanted to challenge that idea by following a woman breaking down the taboos around female pleasure, without idealizing these countries’ sexual practices either”.
Spectres are Haunting Europe by Maria Kourkouta & Niki Giannari
“Idomeni is a political space, marked by the movement of the bodies that met there, plunging in the mud into an endless wait in front of the closed borders and protesting their desire for freedom. We hope that our film captures this experience through its own form: the duration of the shootings, the frames, the editing, the words exchanged and heard”.
The Wonder Kid by Yorgos Panteleakis
“The sport of boxing is misunderstood in Greece because the people have no close perception of it. There are no boxing games and a constructed image of boxing has prevailed, shaped by television and Hollywood, which focuses only on exaggeration and violence. Through documentary filmmaking, we closely monitor the people involved in the sport, watching them in their every day lives and this process helps restore the true dimensions of this sport”.
