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La Pietà

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INTERVIEW with the Directors, Pepe Andreu and Rafa Molés (above picture Thessaloniki Film Festival / Studio Aris Rammos)

By Dimitra Kouzi

You describe the glacier as the true protagonist of La Pietà. How do you direct — and produce — a film in which the central character is neither fully human nor fictional, but a living entity fast disappearing?

It’s difficult to stand before the magnificence of a glacier and not feel that it is something far beyond an inert mass of ice. The ice moves; it groans, it speaks — you could almost feel that it sings. It holds physical particles of our history, oxygen our ancestors once breathed, entire universes trapped within its depths. For us, it is something overwhelming, almost mystical.

So for nearly two decades we have been searching, through cinema — our way of expressing ourselves — for a way to convey to the viewer the blend of beauty and pain we felt when we first stood before Vatnajökull over twenty years ago.

The idea was to treat the glacier as a living being: a vast and powerful being that is now dying. A being that moves, that speaks to us and that weeps; a being to love, to care for, and to mourn when we lose it.

The key to conveying that admiration and compassion for the glacier was discovering that there were many others like us, long before us. We learned the story of Flosi Björnsson and his brothers, who lived in isolation on their remote farm, looking after the glacier. Then we encountered the farm, which is still there, like a still life. Then Flosi’s texts and a 16mm film in which they appear exploring the glacier… And later the photographer Ragnar Axelsson and other characters who, like pilgrims — like us — have, for centuries, been drawn to the lament of Vatnajökull.

It is the human gaze that makes us human, and that humanises. So together, we look at the glacier as we would a wounded young person, like a whale stranded on the sand, like something more than a ruined cathedral… and we do so with the intention of awakening the viewer’s empathy, memory, and awareness.

Watch the TRAILER

Pepe Andreu right (director, editor, script-writer and producer) and Rafa Molés left (director, script-writer and producer)

What makes your film different from other films about climate change?

Beauty is the way. Beauty moves us, and it has moved human beings since our beginnings. It stirs us deeply, makes us react, and makes us act.

From the start, we never thought of making a film with climate change as the central focus, but rather a film about beauty and fascination — about something that moves us and that we are letting die. In fact, the film speaks more about human stupidity than about climate change.

We have all the information available about climate change. We have the data, the forecasts; we know the solution, and yet there is nothing to suggest that we will react as we should. Climate change overwhelms us — it seems too big, beyond our control. But beauty, stories, are something we all understand.

That is our small contribution: to make a film — what is within our power — just as our characters did before us. Beauty works on us, and on many others. We wanted to try. La Pietà is our small contribution to a global problem.

Directors
Pepe Andreu and Rafa Molés together with their Music Composer Alberto Lucendo at a Radio interview

We live in a moment of both eco-anxiety and paralysis — we are mostly aware of the facts, yet often feel unable to act. In what way do you hope this film could counter that paralysis?

At one point in the film, Oddur Sigurðsson, a prominent retired glaciologist, speaks with Ragnar, a renowned photographer who has dedicated his work to showing the consequences of climate change for Arctic populations. Oddur tells him that we must find other ways to reach people and convey the urgency of this problem. Scientists have been precise, but they struggle — and are fully aware of how complex it is — to communicate these issues to the public. Oddur Sigurðsson places his faith in the idea that where science falls short, the work of artists can help.

This is how we would like the film to function. In this case, art can serve as a bridge between science and the public.

We all find it difficult to act because the meaning of what we are losing has faded; we have grown accustomed to hearing that there is a problem, yet we are unable to grasp its scale. This is where poetry comes in: to reveal, once again, the meaning of the catastrophe.

However, we do not feel there is pessimism in our film, but rather profound reflection, tough realism, and the belief that— throughout the history of art — the beauty of a still life has moved us and reminded us of our most humanistic side.

Flosi Björnsson and his siblings devoted their lives to the glacier long before climate discourse existed. What does their radical life choice reflect back to us today?

The legacy this family leaves us is an example to follow. Small actions within our reach can transform the world. Their example has moved scientists, artists, the current inhabitants of the valley, and us — to make this film.

Their relationship with everything around them, their awareness of being a natural part of the place they inhabited, and the interest they showed in their surroundings — the flowers, the insects — their desire to learn everything.

The siblings lived almost isolated from the world for most of the year, yet they studied glaciers, botany, geology, entomology… as self-taught learners (Flosi learned several languages on his own, with nothing but books and by listening to the radio), driven by love for the place where they lived. That way of understanding life and relating to nature is the legacy they leave us: to withdraw from the global noise, to look closely at what is right before our eyes, with attention, affection, delicacy, and hope.

Sold out world premiere screening

You’ve referred to the film as a kind of ‘ghost story’. How did this spectral dimension influence both the storytelling and the production choices?

There is an unattainable dimension when you stand before the great wall of a glacier — something that goes beyond what our human mind can assimilate. You try to grasp, with all your senses and knowledge, what you see, what youhear, what you feel, but it’s impossible. It is overwhelming. That spectral dimension is powerful; it is there, if you are fortunate enough to stand on a glacier.

That is why we played with the idea of the ghost, understood in a contemporary sense: a familiar presence from the past, a benevolent spirit that encourages or warns us about what is happening. The farmhouse where the Björnsson family lived is not haunted, but it creaks; the wind slips through the cracks; and, in some way, the voices of those who lived there still resonate — voices from the past that howl like advice, like warnings.

All the Björnsson siblings have passed away. The handwritten texts we found by Flosi, with notes about daily life and his explorations, gave us the real words for that ghost. By reading them, we invoked his spirit and brought his voiceback to life — voiced in the film by the great Icelandic actor Ingvar E. Sigurðsson.

That is also why we filmed the empty farmhouse at different moments of the year: to show — and to hear — the passage of time, with characters whose shadows we barely see (we will all be shadows), focusing on small details capable of evoking it — a box of memories, personal objects they once touched, old paintings, 

You had access to personal archives, even a 16mm reel from 1950. What responsibility did you feel when bringing these fragile memories back to life, and how did you balance preservation with reinterpretation?

When our friend and co-producer Ólafur Rögnvaldsson told us the story of the Björnsson family and we visited the farm, we were in shock — but discovering the 16mm footage undoubtedly pushed us to tell this story.

The old film showed us what we already knew from Flosi’s diaries: the family, the work on the farm, their expeditions to the glacier. But those images had enormous power on their own — almost spectral. It was fascinating and left us spellbound. We wanted to manipulate it as little as possible, to preserve it as we found it, without adding voice-over or ambient sound; only minimal music to help bring that past into the present and allow ourselves to be hypnotised by these images.

We do not believe it is a reinterpretation but a tribute; these frames were shot with a purpose similar to what we are filming today, and they are very valuable material for understanding how this family related to nature.

This respect also extends to the many photographs and personal objects we had access to, which play a fundamental role in the narrative — able to evoke a life and a way of acting that we seek to reframe, or to present as still lifes that function as an offering or an altar.

Sound plays a central role in this film. How did you conceive the sonic identity of the glacier, and at what stage did music and sound design become essential to shaping the film’s ‘voice’?

From the very beginning, we wanted to give life to the glacier and show it as a wounded being, infinitely beautiful. Sound design and music were fundamental to achieving that. We worked with Iván Martínez-Rufat (in charge of sound design) to transform the sounds of the glacier into a lament — into the cry of something that still retains life.

The farmhouse, too, takes on a life of its own. Together with Iván Martínez-Rufat and the wonderful Lithuanian foley team, we played with the idea that inside the house, the wood and the wind should sound like a ship adrift — a kind of ghost ship that carries with it all the life that once inhabited it.

To all of this we added Alberto Lucendo’s score, to create the great requiem the film becomes. Alberto embarked on an exciting sound research project, taking as reference the ideas we proposed (the beached whale, the ruined cathedral, the constant voice of the wind conveying a whispered message, or the running water — like blood), searching for instruments and melodies that would evoke those images and help develop the idea of this requiem.

You have spent many years working in Iceland and building close relationships there. How did this involvement impact the film? Did being insiders give you freedom, or did it increase your sense of responsibility?

Iceland is a place that captivated us more than twenty years ago. And we have not been able to stop going back ever since. This is our second film there, but it could easily have been the first.

When we discovered the country, each of us separately, we immediately felt that one day we would create something out of the glaciers.

From that love at first sight, and from the need to know more, our previous film Lobster Soup was born. That film allowed us to get very close to people and to build a special relationship with them. It also made us understand that we too — more than being part of the surroundings — were part of the problem. We arrived as tourists and, generally, behaved like predators. We have learned this from our capitalist way of life, but here we became aware of it and are willing to act. This is our responsibility.

Lobster Soup had an impressive international run, but among all the recognitions we have received, the one we are proudest of is being named adoptive children of the town of Grindavík, where the film takes place. Being welcomed as part of the story and the community has changed us. Iceland is not an exotic or remote place for us, but something closer to home.

You co-direct and co-produce your films. How does this collaboration function in practice? How do you divide and share creative and production responsibilities? How do you navigate divergence of views while maintaining a unified vision?

Sharing the direction of a film comes naturally to us. That is how we met, and almost without thinking about it, that ishow we made our first film — and we have grown into this way of working.

For us, it is an easy way to work, mainly because we start from a shared vision of what drives us to make a film and to tell it in a certain way. We are two minds sharing the same vision, and then we bring in other minds from the team. We talk things through a lot, and the film itself decides — sometimes immediately, and other times over time.

Our roles as directors and writers are constantly intertwined, and while we do divide certain tasks — sometimes one of us focuses more on writing and the other on editing — we are both involved in every decision about the film.

La Pietà embraces a contemplative, slow cinematic language. In a time of accelerated consumption and shrinking attention spans, how do you reflect on the future of cinema, particularly this kind of immersive, patient filmmaking?

Without a doubt, the future of cinema is uncertain. The current crisis goes beyond the industry and economics: we arewitnessing a flattening of narratives under the rule of algorithms and speed-driven consumption — a simplification of film language on a scale we have not seen before. Little by little, we are giving in to a culture of disposability, and the kind of cinema we have understood until now may increasingly survive as a form of cultural resistance rather than simply as a nostalgic trend. Resisting is a beautiful way to create.

What role does humour play in your film?

Director Rafa Molés, and 
Director Pepe Andreu, Thessaloniki Film Festival / Studio Aris Rammos

Humour is one of the most useful tools for expressing or communicating, but also one of the most difficult to articulate. For us it is especially difficult because of our, let’s say, “melancholic” nature, but we would like to have enough talent to use it more.

This film uses humour, but it is closer to satire or sarcasm, with the intention of ridiculing ourselves and the way human beings relate to nature today.

At a certain point, the camera seems to turn towards all of us. The tourists represent each and every one of us — consuming the glacier like insects devouring a corpse, moving through its entrails impassively. The sequence of tourists on the glacier taking selfies is funny, but it is also painful. It holds up a mirror to us: this is who we are; we laugh at ourselves, but it is profoundly bitter.

What do you hope audiences take with them?

We hope that fascination — the love and beauty of glaciers — becomes the spark that helps people wake up and take action.

Directors
Pepe Andreu and Rafa Molés have been working together as writers and directors of documentary films since 2013. Their work has been selected at festivals such as San Sebastián, Visions du Réel, DOK.fest Munich, and Thessaloniki.

The film had its world premiere at the 28th Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival (2026) were it was awarded The “Human Values” Award of the Hellenic Parliament .

Want to watch it? La Pieta will continue its festival journey:

DocsBarcelona. May 9th 2026

Dok.Munich. May 10th 2026

Docs Valencia May 15th 2026

Krakow Film Festival May 31th 2026

Reykjavík International Film Festival 24th September 2026

Scannorama Lithuania 5th November 2026

Find more about it in the PRESS KIT

Pepe Andreu and Rafa Molés, Ólafur Rögnvaldsson their Icelandic co-producer, and 
Arūnas Matelis their Lithuanian co-producer

Articles, Doc-making, Festivals, Interviews

Amílcar at IDFA 2025 Envision: Miguel Eek in Conversation with Dimitra Kouzi

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Dimitra Kouzi: You constructed the film using Cabral’s own words in a first-person voice-over. What were the ethical and emotional challenges of giving voice to someone who can no longer speak for himself, especially someone as politically and historically charged as Cabral?

Miguel Eek: It was an enormous challenge – a responsibility that at times frightened me – and one in which the complicity of experts, both from Cabral’s circle and from my own team, was essential. The film remains a speculative exercise based on Cabral’s letters, poems, and political writings. These form the raw material that sustains it, yet it is still a highly subjective selection of texts and moments, in dialogue with an image track where archival footage coexists with images I filmed myself, marked by chance and by the contemporary world.

Dimitra Kouzi: As a non-African filmmaker, how did you navigate the risk of re-colonising the narrative of an African liberation hero – not through military or economic force, but through cinematic authorship?

Miguel Eek: It’s a fundamental question, because that risk is always present. It would have been impossible to finance this film without an international co-production – one in which Europe, a continent that was and still is colonising in many ways, funds this story. This is not the first, nor will it be the last, film made about Cabral. The many dimensions of his life and work invite readings from different times, realities, and perspectives.

In my case, I focused on the global dimension of his figure. Amílcar Cabral is one of the most lucid personalities in history – not only African history, but world history. His lucidity enabled him to elevate the struggle for the independence of two small countries to a diplomatic level, turning it into an international issue while forcing societies to reflect on their own biases, prejudices, and privileges.

What I find most universal about Cabral is not only his international reach but his deeply humanist vision, expressed in his texts and letters, where love, learning, fear, and human rights are questioned and confronted as challenges of humanity itself.

Dimitra Kouzi: It’s quite daring to make a poetic essay about a politician. Of course, with Cabral it suits the subject, but it can’t have been easy to produce this film, since you’re both director and producer. Did those two identities ever clash?

Miguel Eek: All the time. It’s my daily struggle – how to direct films that I also produce. I spent years in discussions about form, trying to understand what I was doing. Amílcar is the first poetic essay I’ve made myself. My earlier films were more contemporary character portraits, and navigating between ideas, metaphors, and textures has been a real challenge – but one I’ve enjoyed. I often felt insecure, but I had a great team: Federico Delpero as editor, João Pedro Plácido as DoP, Alba Lombardia as co-writer, and all my co-producers, who reassured me that we were on the right track. It was especially important that Cabral’s compatriots felt we were honouring the promise I made to them. Although the film was co-produced by four countries, we made it on a very limited budget, which also conditioned the choices.

Dimitra Kouzi: I can empathise with you as I’m also working on a film about someone larger than life, and I understand how difficult it is to step out of the comfort zone of a conventional portrait. I imagine there were moments when no one – especially the financiers – believed in your vision.

Miguel Eek: It’s hard to convince people to fund a poetic essay about a politician. But Cabral was also a poet, and his sensitivity speaks through his texts and letters. It’s rare for the relatives of a historical figure to share such intimate correspondence, and that completely changed my approach.

At first I imagined a collection of testimonies, but I realised the film was full of myth and light, with no shadows. A portrait made only of light is unfair to the complexity of life – and boring. I needed to find new ways to approach him, including the darker aspects of his actions and thoughts. I had to move beyond fascination and approach him differently.

Dimitra Kouzi: How did you manage to avoid idealising him?

Miguel Eek: By choosing to tell the story entirely through his own words. That decision forced me to abandon any testimony that simply praised him. The challenge was to build a dramaturgy from the letters he wrote – to wives, comrades, friends – so that the story would unfold through those voices.

I also drew on documents from the Portuguese secret police, which reveal the tension between his utopian ideals and the harsh reality of war, betrayal, and racism within his own movement. These texts exposed how Cabral’s dream of fairness collided with circumstances he couldn’t control: corruption, mistrust, and discrimination even within the PAIGC. They helped me grasp both the complexity of his struggle and his humanity.

At the same time, we were aware that, as a foreign crew, we might arouse the same kind of suspicion that Cabral, as a Cape Verdean, once faced in Guinea. He was both African and an outsider, a bridge between Portugal and Guinea. That tension – between belonging and estrangement – was something we also tried to integrate into the film’s perspective.

Dimitra Kouzi: What was the filming process like? The film blends archival and contemporary material. When and why did you decide to work that way, and how did you use the archive, 16 mm shooting, and sound to tell the story?

Miguel Eek: The process and formal structure of the film were extremely difficult to find; it took 10 years to reach the final approach. Discovering Cabral’s intimate letters to his two wives changed everything – that was when I realised the subjectivity of the character would have to shape the film itself. I developed a kind of script – not a conventional one, but a guide indicating the images I needed to shoot in order to express Cabral’s poetic vision, the parts missing from the archives. For me, the key was how to convey the intimacy and subjectivity of the character – not only through his words, but also through the selection of images that reveal his attention to the land and to people, his way of observing and understanding the world.

Working with João Pedro Plácido, the director of photography, we shot on 16 mm film – a decision that imposed strict limitations. The cameras were old and fragile, often breaking down after two or three shots, so it was a constant alternation between repairing and shooting. 

I was searching for what I call mantra images – long, minimal shots that allow the viewer to enter Cabral’s words, to immerse themselves in the visual rhythm created by his imagined voice. We tried to reconstruct the feeling of Cabral arriving in Guinea for the first time: an agronomist coming from the arid landscapes of Cape Verde, suddenly encountering the lush, humid abundance of Guinea – full of water, vegetation, and life. We aimed to embody that same curiosity.

I wasn’t working from a detailed screenplay, but rather from notes about textures and spaces. Later, in the editing room with Federico Delpero, we confronted the texts with the images, exploring how they could resonate with one another. For Amílcar, editing lasted four years. One of our key intentions was to blur the distinction between the archival and the newly shot material. Even though the archives include both black-and-white and colour footage, we didn’t want to separate them sharply. We wanted viewers to feel that they were inhabiting Cabral’s own perception – not watching an historical reconstruction, but entering a continuum of thought and feeling. 

We deliberately sought a certain visual tension. I asked João Pedro not to film as a professional cinematographer, but as an amateur – to shoot from the heart rather than the mind. If he felt an impulse to move closer, he should zoom in; if the camera drifted or trembled, that was fine. We embraced those imperfections, because they reveal emotion. That tension enriches the film’s emotional subjectivity.

One of the main goals was to avoid the feeling of jumping between different times and types of archive. Of course, the texture changes, but once you’re in the story you forget these small differences. I hope broadcasters and distributors understand that we also need new approaches and narratives; we’re all a bit tired of the same portrait format. Emphasising subjectivity is something I hope can work for audiences.

One of the main goals was to avoid the feeling of jumping between different times and types of archive.

Dimitra Kouzi: Cabral often insisted that liberation could not be complete without the liberation of women, and that every person, man or woman, should have equal opportunities to advance as a human being. How did this aspect of his thinking influence the way you approached his story in the film?

Miguel Eek: A Guinean historian once told me that Amílcar Cabral was light-years ahead of his contemporaries. Since I first read him, I’ve felt that many of the struggles he identified remain unresolved today, which makes him profoundly relevant. He led a struggle in a territory marked by inequality and by deeply rooted tribal, social, and gender customs. He staked everything on mixture and diversity. No one was excluded from spaces of power or responsibility.

He brought women into positions that had previously been reserved for men. In the film, we see women learning to use rifles, training, marching, and dancing alongside men. I’m sure this was extremely difficult to realise in practice, given the social structures of the time. The fact that we still live in societies marked by hierarchy, bias, and privilege shows how radical and necessary his ideas are. 

Dimitra Kouzi: In shaping a portrait of Cabral’s private and public selves, how did you balance the intimate with the iconic – the lover, the poet, the militant – without romanticising or diluting any one aspect?

Miguel Eek: Until 1966, Cabral was almost unknown on camera. Very few people filmed him. After the Tricontinental Conference in Havana in 1966, he became someone the press and filmmakers wanted to approach. Before that, we could only offer his subjectivity; we had some photographs, but his moving image is largely absent. After 1966, his image grows across different spaces and cinematographies. The film also evolves: from a figure who is hidden to one who increasingly appears in meetings and international contexts.

It was tricky to address viewers who already know Cabral and those encountering him for the first time. The political ideas had to be developed enough to convey the dimension of the thinker. Translating those ideas into images was one of the great challenges: how to say enough but not too much; how to avoid drowning in words and remain visual and emotional. The balance lives in the tension between Cabral speaking from the heart and Cabral speaking from the mind – the politician who liked to call himself “a simple African man.”

Dimitra Kouzi: What is Cabral’s political traction today – his relevance in a world of rising authoritarianism and disinformation?

Miguel Eek: During the years of developing and producing this film, I kept wondering why Cabral affected me so deeply. Why did this distant guide from Africa resonate in a young Spanish filmmaker? I couldn’t answer for a long time, but I think it has to do with our current lack of inspiring leaders and with the public’s disaffection with politics – a theatre of posturing rather than a commitment to the common good.

In Cabral’s words I found what we may be missing in contemporary politicians: real conviction. Times like these require decisive choices, and you can’t always know how major changes or revolutions will end. Cabral still inspires because the problems of the 1960s haven’t been resolved: power, social justice, and the many forms of colonialism. Decades ago he pointed to issues that remain painfully current, and the clarity of his expression makes both his words and his life contemporary.

In Cabral’s words I found what we may be missing in contemporary politicians: real conviction. Times like these require decisive choices, and you can’t always know how major changes or revolutions will end. Cabral still inspires because the problems of the 1960s haven’t been resolved: power, social justice, and the many forms of colonialism. Decades ago he pointed to issues that remain painfully current, and the clarity of his expression makes both his words and his life contemporary.

Dimitra Kouzi: I imagine that also kept you with the film for 12 years.

Miguel Eek: Yes. Over those 12 years I made five other films, and I was often afraid that when financing finally arrived I would have lost Cabral’s inspiration or the energy to continue. Surprisingly, every time new support appeared, I reconnected immediately – even though my situation had changed. I grew as a filmmaker through this process. I began almost like a first-time director and finished with eight films behind me. I learned to navigate complexity.

Cabral’s armed struggle lasted ten years. This film took more than ten years of work – and, as he said, the struggle continues.

Dimitra Kouzi: How has this film affected you?

Miguel Eek: As a filmmaker, the experience has opened up new possibilities for essayistic languages that I hope to continue exploring. Immersing myself in Amílcar Cabral’s world for so many years has allowed me to believe again in certain forms of politics. It has healed a kind of disaffection towards what today seems a largely performative and empty political system.

Dimitra Kouzi: Did you ever have a moment when you felt like Cabral?

Miguel Eek: It may sound strange, but I’ve always been drawn to characters who are misunderstood. Since childhood, I myself was not understood – especially in wanting to make films, and to make them in my own way, which is in itself a kind of utopia. I wouldn’t compare myself directly with Amílcar Cabral but I recognise the same passion and commitment in him that I need to make films. I can almost smell it in his writings. That’s why I’m interested in people who, whether in politics or in art, are driven yet full of doubt. The ideas of doubt, fear, and fragility resonate deeply with me – they echo inside me.

 This interview has been edited and condensed.

Watch the TRAILER

Are you interested for more? Click HERE

Articles, Doc-making, EN, Festivals, Screenings-Events

passage to Europe 

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Published in Greek in the local newspaper “To Galaxidi” March 2021[1]

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Save the date: 27 August 2021 Galaxidi

Film Screening: of passage to Europe by Dimitra Kouzi, WINNER for Best documentary, at the San Francisco Greek Film Festival 2021, Special Jury Award Documentary at the Los Angeles Greek Film Festival

Both by luck and design, a privileged choice, dictated by the pandemic, to stay in Galaxidi since late August 2020, offered us the pleasure for an even more unique in-person world premiere for my film, Good Morning Mr Fotis![2]Being in Galaxidi throughout this period gave us another blessed opportunity – to enjoy a swim in the sea almost every single day throughout the winter![3]

Everyone who was there at the October 2020 screening expressed their wish for something more.[4]

A few short hours after the screening, Mit[5] wrote a very helpful, to me, article/review, titled ‘Hosting Refugee Children in Greece’.[6]

The public’s response in Galaxidi, Mit’s review on the morning following the screening, a 5 month tutorial with him and later Tue's Steen Müller’s review, (two months later), prompted me to create a new film, during the lock-down.[7]

passage to Europe was selected to be screened at the Los Angeles Greek Film Festival on 10–20 May and at the Greek Film Festival in Berlin on 1–6 June (both events online).[8] The first live in-person screening in Greece will take place at Galaxidi on Saturday 27 August.[9]

Mit's text might very well have been subtitled: ‘A guided tour to the new Athens’. Viewers, including the Greeks who don’t live in the city centre nor pass by Vathi Square, where the film is set, embark on a kind of a ‘journey’ out of their bubble and to this neighbourhood, which has dramatically transformed in the last ten years. The area is now almost exclusively inhabited by immigrants and refugees. This is a common occurrence in many European cities, but in the suburbs;[10] here, it has happened in the very heart of the city. It is the neighborhood that is the context in which the story takes place, that creates the conditions, that made me think and make a film. My own setting, my environment, is what determines the conditions of my life; it gave me the opportunity to think about making a film; yet my broader environment in Greece was definitely not what helped me turn my vision into reality – or will help me to make my next film. 

The issue of a lack of a conducive framework often arises in our discussions. We are lucky here in Galaxidi to have a reference to a very specific and easy to grasp framework once in place in the village – a framework developed by seamen, which was the differentiating factor for Galaxidi. What would these seamen say after the second screening, in August 2021, sipping their coffee in the three cafes (Krikos/Hatzigiannis/Kambyssos) on the Galaxidi port? 

A picture containing road, outdoor, street, person Description automatically generated

Mit argues that in the 70 minutes of the original film there was not a strong enough link to the refugee issue,[11]especially for Northern European viewers who are not immediately aware of the connection, but will certainly face the issue eventually, as it is in Northern Europe that almost all the children in Good Morning Mr Fotis dream of living in ten years’ time.[12]

So my goal was to condense the action and highlight the immigration issue. Mit proposed me to give the film an open ending which I did without any further filming taking place. Mr Fotis should not be alone in carrying the load, when every year he welcomes a new class of children of multiple nationalities, often with non-existent Greek, making us complacent and creating the illusion that, as long as there are teachers like Mr Fotis, everything is fine. For the different end I used black and white pictures by Dimitris Michalakis.

Shorter durations are more ‘portable’. They afford much more freedom. It’s like travelling light.[13] Evaluation – what goes out, what goes in – is hard and puts you to the test, as it requires exacting standards and constant decisions. In passage to Europe, as the new film is called, the beginning changes, the end changes, and the duration decreases (from 70ʹ to 48ʹ). 

In fact, all children wish to leave for countries that do not have their own ‘Lesbos islands’, writes Mit (10/26/2020). This adds moral value to Greece’s efforts, he adds. He supposes that pupils may well take for granted what Fotis does (he agrees on this with Tue Steen Müller from Denmark and his review of the film);[14] viewers do, too, I add. At the same time, we all wonder, ‘Why aren’t there more people like Fotis?’ 

passage to Europe deals with the issue of immigration in the light of social integration, with respect for diversity, not in theory but in practice. 

Fotis Psycharis has been a teacher at a public school in the heart of Athens for 30 years. The majority of his students, as in the wider region, are children of immigrants and refugees from Africa, the former Soviet Union, the Balkans, the Middle East and Asia, who often see Greece as an inevitable stopover to other countries of Europe. Cultural differences, the lack of a common language, the overcoming of these challenges, Ramadan, Bollywood, the unexpected things that occur during rehearsals for the performance they are preparing to mark their graduation from primary school, the children’s dreams and insecurity for the future, all make up a unique everyday reality in this class, which consists of 17 students from 7 different countries. Aimed at an adult audience, the film provides a rare opportunity to experience life in a public school in today's Greece, which is a host country for immigrants and refugees.

It is an observational documentary. Both Mit and Tue agree on that. I observe a reality that makes me think. What does it mean to grow up in two cultures, in a country other than where you were born? What can we learn from similar cases in history? To create the present, Mit says, one must go back to the past, and from there to the future. To create the future it takes creativity in the present, rather than taking comfort in the past, I believe.  What does that mean for a place such as Galaxidi, a formerly vibrant shipbuilding, ship-owning, and seafaring town? 

In early 2017, when I started making my film Good Morning Mr Fotis, I was planning for it to be 20 minutes long, reasoning that ‘smaller’ meant ‘safer’. I sought to obtain a filming permit from the Greek Ministry of Education to film in the school.[15] However, I went on to shoot a lot of more good material. So much so that it is enough for a third film, if only funding is secured.[16]

During making passage to Europe, things happened that can only happen when you actually do something. Now I think, combine, see differently, take more risks. I have my gaze fixed on this issue, which seems to have fallen out of the news[17] but is bound to return with a vengeance, aggravated by the pandemic. In mid-March 2021, Turkey-Germany negotiations resumed,[18] with the former demanding compensation in order to continue to ‘keep’ refugees outside of the EU.[19]

I feel grateful for making this journey in space and time together with Fotis and for capturing this moment on film twice.  It's a diary, a proposal to look at a story that concerns us all in Europe. In the film, one school year ends and the next one begins. Yet, it doesn’t come full circle and end with the end credits. My intention was for it to be an open circle, a relay, encouraging viewer interpretations, continuities, thought and action.

Dimitra Kouzi
Galaxidi, March 2021

[1] Translated into English by Dimitris Saltabassis

[2] I would like to thank all viewers who showed up at the Youth House on 25/10/2020 to watch my film, Good Morning Mr Fotis, an audience of some 35 indomitable persons who braved the fact that the screening was ‘al fresco’ in the courtyard in the evening, with social distancing and masks, in a freezing maistros (mistral, the north-westerly wind). Not only that, but they stayed on after the screening for a lively Q & A! For me, this was a magical moment, and I would like to thank everyone who was part of our audience – an indispensable element to a creator! Even more so during a time such as this, when everything takes place online! I was fortunate to show my film to people most of whom have known me since I was a child, and my parents and grandparents, too.

[3] ‘Sure, the sea is cold,’ is the standard reply – and that’s precisely what makes a brief winter swim (5–15’) so beneficial! Let alone how great you feel after you pass this test! 

[4] Good Morning Mr Fotis, documentary, 70', Greece, 2020, written, directed, and produced by Dimitra Kouzi • goodmorningmrfotis.com, Good Morning Mr Fotis: Greek Film Centre Docs in Progress Award 2019 21st Thessaloniki Documentary Festival • Youth Jury Award 2020, 22nd Thessaloniki Documentary Festival • Selected to be nominated for IRIS Hellenic Film Academy Award 2021 for Βest Documentary. 

[5] Mit Mitropoulos, Researcher, Environmental Artist, Akti Oianthis 125, 332 00  Galaxidi, Municipality of Delphi [email protected].

[6] ‘Hosting Refugee Children in Greece’, To Galaxidi newspaper, November 2020.

[7] This ‘discussion’, which could only take place thanks to the fact that both I and Mit were constantly in Galaxidi due to the pandemic, was the main reason why I decided to make passage to Europe.

[8]  Earlier on, the film was screened at the San Francisco Greek Film Festival on 16–24 April 2021.

[9] passage to Europe, documentary film, 48ʹ, Greece, 2021. Written, Directed, and Produced by Dimitra Kouzi ([email protected], at the moment Parodos 73, 33 200  Galaxidi, Municipality of Delphi).

[10] Jenny Erpenbeck (author), Susan Bernofsky (translator), Go, Went, Gone, Portobello Books, London 2017. Set in Berlin, where immigrants and refugees have also been received, the book is based on a large number of interviews with immigrants and their stories. The main character is a solitary retired university professor, recently widowed and childless. One day he suddenly ‘discovers’ the existence of refugees in his city; through the fellowship that develops and the help he gives them, he finds new meaning in his life, which seemed to be over when he retired.

[11] The refugee/immigrant issue will historically always be topical – all the more so now that the revision of the EU policy is pending, which was transferred to the Portuguese Presidency that took over from the German one on 1/1/2021.  It is one of the most hotly contested issues facing Europe at a time when there are member states that call for ‘sealing off’ Europe to refugees and immigrants and only accepting people of specific ethnicities, cultures, and religions, according to Santos Silva, Portugal’s foreign minister (Financial Times, 2/1/2021, p.2).

[12] What’s striking to me is that refugee children wish to leave Greece for the very same reasons that Greek young people do: due to the lack of a framework.

[13] Like sailors, who never have a lot of stuff in their cabins. 

[14] filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4887, 25/1/2021

[15] The film Good Morning Mr Fotis was not funded by the Ministry of Education. I addressed a registered letter to the Minister, Niki Kerameos, on 4/2/2021, to inform her about the film and to suggest that Fotis Psycharis be honoured for his overall contribution as a teacher. I have not received a response nor has Fotis received any acknowledgement of his work – at a time when the need for teacher evaluation is increasingly felt.

[16]  See article footnote 5.

[17] In early March 2020, some 7,000 persons live in Kara Tepe, the camp that replaced Moria. More than 2,120 are children; 697 are four years and younger. ‘The Desperate Children of Moria’, Der Spiegel (in English), 1/4/2021, https://www.spiegel.de/international.

[18] At the time of writing (March 2021), Greece makes efforts to send back to Turkey 1,450 asylum-seekers whose application has been rejected. According to the United Nations World Food Program, 12.4 million Syrians live in famine and pressure Turkey in the form of an influx of migrants (currently holding, according to official UN figures, 3.6 million from Syria and another 300,000 from elsewhere). See Handelsblatt, 14/3/2021, ‘Deutschland und die Türkei verhandeln neuen Flüchtlingspakt – Griechenland verärgert, Die Türkei hält Geflüchtete von der Weiterreise in die EU ab. Das soll sie für Geld und Zugeständnisse weiter tun. Das birgt diplomatische Probleme.’  [Germany and Turkey negotiate new immigration agreement – Greece is annoyed, Turkey restrains migratory flows from continuing their journey to the EU. To continue doing so, it is asking for money and benefits. This creates diplomatic problems.]

[19] Handelsblatt: ‘New refugee deal negotiated by Germany and Turkey – “Greece upset”. According to information cited by Handelsblatt, the points that are most likely to spoil a new agreement are being discussed.’ To Vima newspaper, 14/03/2021

Articles, Doc-making, EN, Festivals, People

passage To Europe wins Special jury award for BEST documentary at los angeles greek film festival 2021

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The film was also screened at the San Francisco Greek Film Festival on 16–24 April 2021. In San Francisco it won as BEST DOCUMENTARY the jury wrote about it: 'Passage to Europe' is an intimate portrait of Fotis Psycharis, whose passion for teaching is matched only by his compassion for his charismatic students. The filmmaker’s extraordinary access and skilled technique takes the viewer past the inflammatory rhetoric surrounding global refugees to open hearts and minds to the resilient children facing unimaginable hardship. https://grfilm.com/awards/

read more on how and why the film passage to Europe, 48', 2021, directed by Dimitra Kouzi was made after Good Morning Mr Fotis, 70', 2020 HERE

Articles, Doc-making, EN

Art Crimes shoot in Greece

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This is the protected Delphic Landscape and us (Jacob Stark, Stefano Strocci and Dimitra Kouzi) while the shooting for part of episode 3 of “Art Crimes”, a documentary series about some of the most spectacular art heists of the 20th century! The series is produced by Stefano Strocci (Unknown Media) in co-production with RBB/ARTE, SKY Arte and will feature dramatic reconstructions of thefts, with input from those involved: the investigators, prosecutors and some of the thieves themselves.

Episode 3 brings us to Greece and the city of Itea. This is the small Greek city (15 Klm from Delphi by the sea in Fokis) were the oil producer, Ephthimios Moscadescades lived. He and his brother requested the prestigious Renaissance paintings, including two Raphael artworks. The paintings were stolen by a group of Italian and Hungarian thieves from the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest in November 1983. After an anonymous phone-call the paintings were found in a suitcase in the garden of the Tripiti Monastery in Aigio.

We shoot (also with a super 8 camera) in Itea, the breathtaking area around it towards Aigio (on the Peloponnese) and then in Athens, where we interviewed the judge Leandros Rakintzis. Save the date the amazing series will be broadcasted in more than 15 channels across Europe in 2022.

https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/art-crimes-van-gogh-the-scream-picasso-documentary-arte-sky-1203410253/

Doc-making, EN, Festivals, Interviews, People

Interview with Firouzeh Khosrovani (“Radiograph of a family”)

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There are films destined to become classics, here to stay, to be watched again and again and reveal ever new facets – films to inspire. Last night I woke up in the middle of the night and jotted in my notebook: ‘collective memory through archives.’ I felt I must remember it, that and: ‘documentation of memories,’ a phrase Firouzeh Khosrovani used over the phone earlier, she in Tehran, I in Athens.

An effective title ushers you right into the film: Radiograph of a Family. Factually as well as symbolically, the story of the director’s family and the history of her country unfold before your eyes, and you want to see and hear it all, touch it even; smell the scent of rosewater; yet at certain moments it feels like having sand in my mouth.

The film’s opening phrase – the phrase that inspired her to make this film – immediately grasps the viewer’s attention: ‘My mother married my father’s photograph.’ Weird though it sounds, it’s true.

There are architectural elements in this film; not only because it is set in an empty house – their home in Teheran – but also because it is richly stratified, with materials that highlight textures, interactions, and trajectories in space. ‘The film builds a puzzle with precious family archives that blend with powerful images of collective moments of great significance.’*

It all began, the director Firouzeh Khosrovani notes, with the photo archive and her memories, out of which she started to weave the story she was most familiar with, as well as to fill the gaps:

‘Looking at our family albums as a child made me develop imaginary stories about my parents’ relationship. The pictures in our family albums became the primary archives in the film. Other formal and informal archival footage provided opportunities to expand the story of our family photos. At times, the archive more accurately conveyed what I had originally imagined or remembered about a story. So, sometimes the images created the story, and sometimes we looked for images to advance our story.
I also used out-of-focus Super 8, their elusive texture resembling the hazy texture of our deep-rooted memories.’

One can only admire the way this film speaks about the history of Iran, posing questions, avoiding bitterness and dogma, casting a critical yet lucid glance into a fascinating world, telling a riveting story before our eyes.

The revolution occurs at the exact middle of the film.
‘I had appealing ideas but no real plot. I knew that a well-constructed plot often moves along a cause-and-effect chain. The film structure is created through my lived experience and vivid childhood memories.’

Unless you know precisely what you want to say right from the start, you run the risk of becoming lost in the different strands of the material. I witnessed the making of this film like someone weaving a carpet, an arabesque of yarn and dye.

‘I had too many interwoven themes. It was easy to get lost in the multiple threads of ideas and forget to think of a compact narrative structure. The fusion of my own fantasies and reality made me excited to share it with others through this film. I sought to lay out in a structured order a chain of connected ideas; tore up photos; produced X-rays of distorted backbones – scans of our home – a narrative space divided into two poles and telling the story of how Islamic laws penetrated our life and our memories of it. Many other peripheral ideas gradually came to my mind.’

‘I did everything I planned to do. Step by step. Working with a great art director, Morteza Ahmadvand, who contributed significantly to its development during the long production journey.’

An act of re-examination and reconciliation, this is a therapeutic film to watch over and over again to discover new aspects of world history and its impact on the stories of three individuals, of a family. Firouzeh doesn’t like the word ‘identity. I respectfully didn’t ask her why; I guess the term may seem to her one-sided, not enough to qualify as self-determination – an identity is never one identity.

This applies to the film, too. In addition to the archives, it is the sound, music, voices, whispers that evoke an environment. Firouzeh Khosrovani explains ‘We considered many different options for speech. Because of the tendency towards realism, it was not possible for the narrator (me) to tell the story before I was born. I tried to find a distinctive conversational tone. Sometimes with whispers. Sometimes loudly.’

I loved the conversational tone of the film. The dialogues truly bring the couple’s conversations to life.

The music also serves a narrative function in Radiograph of a Family, evoking, for instance, her father’s presence even in a scene with her mother alone.
The soundtrack consists of ‘recreation of sounds heard at home. Classical pieces recorded in my childhood memories have been selected and replayed by the composer. Also, a creative re-playing of the melodies of Revolutionary and war anthems that exist in the collective memory of Iranians took their place in the film.’

It took Firouzeh Khosrovani almost five years to finish her film. And it is really beautiful the way she treated her parents, how she values their places in her life and within society; how she respects her mother's political and life choices, despite all the differences that she might have with her.

‘[My mother] was touched profoundly [when she watched the film]. She entirely acknowledged the imaginary dialogues with my father before I was born. She appreciated the conversational tone of the film, the narrative arc, the visual aspect, music – everything. She congratulated me and hugged me.’

This sounds like closure, but it’s not – we all have our own paths to travel.

‘I experienced the greatest invincibility, patience, and failure in the years of making this film. But it was not without pleasure. This film made me. And it continues to do so.’

Firouzeh Khosrovani's Radiograph of a Family has been named the best feature-length documentary at the 2020 International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) the film won also the IDFA Competition for Creative Use of Archive 2020

radiographofafamily.com

  • The excerpts are from the interview Firouzeh Khosrovani gave me on November 2020.
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The Arnode Kavos house welcomes Dimitra Kouzi

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The ARNode[1] Kavos house[2] welcomes Dimitra Kouzi[3]

It felt like a visit to a church before vespers, exactly when the most interesting things happen.

Reverently, mystically, metaphysically, unhurriedly, at his own pace, as if in a ritual dance, he revealed to me the place of… worship. Little by little, with a hint of tender hesitation, perhaps embarrassment, but with the fresh youthful joy of the explorer. Like a monologue, but two-way and interactive, each sentence providing food for thought on multiple levels. An erotic confession.

It took me nearly a week to assimilate this experience of a guided tour of the ARNode Kavos house, Mit’s[4] house. At first, I kept the experience to myself, not knowing what to do, how to capture it on paper. Without crumpling it, without distorting it. Just the act of recalling it, I feared, might cause it to fade. In my mind, it was all there, but putting it into words may have altered it. 

But I never for a moment stopped thinking about it. What an honour! In Mit’s inner sanctum, where things appeared so familiar, yet so unknown. Everything was alive. I felt at every step that there were hidden aspects. And much more that I couldn’t see, parallel stories about everything, almost as if the drawings, embroideries, sculptures, furniture, lemons, garlic and Dexion shelving were in motion, communicating with each other. Everything appeared as one piece, but there were so many different stories. 

A mermaid stuffed into a bag, only her tail visible; I almost followed her on her dive into the sea. To create and then set aside, perhaps for someone else to find and discover how much freedom is there in parting with something voluntarily?  

Just everybody was preset there: Georgie (Makris)[5], Auntie Voula, Captain George (Mitropoulos), Auntie Mitsa[6] naked, taking a shower in her yard, the ouzo, the baklava in the baking pan, the 10 species of fish and other creatures in our sea[7] at the time, and a fishing line hanging from the window, “be careful not to get it caught in the railings!” (when fishing from the 3rd floor balcony).

Everything was there: deserted shores, his nudes, (which a friend of his found in a folder next to his headboard and later organised Mit’s first art exhibition in Brussels). The small sculptures, which he has not shown to anyone. I had certainly never seen them. But I would definitely like to see them again, touch them. Caress them. 

I remember them in the smallest detail, even their location, as if they had been revealed to me before going back into hiding in their secret world, their parallel world which momentarily met my own, I think, but I am again left with questions – I see whatever I can. 

The composition is his, every little corner: small desks, work left to one side, waiting for Mit to resume. Left, not abandoned; as if he had just got up, as if he sits down and gets up simultaneously, like a dancer moving with choreographed purpurse from point to point. Everything is alive, connected, pulsating, networks again, like those he has been creating all his life. Not with electricity, but with the Northern wind and the sea. The house is a ship, with bridges, stairs and tiny corners.  

The view around him, outside, with the North wind raging on that day. I had not experienced such a wind for a long time; the waves were crashing over the quay. Not a soul in sight. Where could Rouroulis the cat be? We were sailing in its stories. Together. 

And Auntie Voula’s embroideries, like icons, suspended from hangers. Seagull dreams – travels – votive offerings – Auntie Voula was there too – I heard her talking about her son Makis (Mit). I saw her, very much alive with Darina[8], at parallel at times.

Simultaneously, the young girl, the bride in a violet dress, slightly older, holding a baking tray and posing for a photograph, reading a book, her glasses attached to a cord over her neck, later in life a beautiful olive-skinned woman (“she’s one of ours”, they had said in Egypt) and finally, at her elderly age. My mother’s godmother. My dear mother, you could not endure the idea of time and age, preferring, perhaps, to leave us while still young. Yes, Darina was also there, using the open wardrobe to sit inside it, waiting with towel in hand for Auntie Voula to finish using the bathroom (I even heard her heavy footsteps in the sitting room where they both slept) 

The sun is sinking behind Mount Parnassus as backstage. I have stopped my countryside walk, on a back road that winds through fields, once a lake. I am thinking that they have nearly all of them gone, they have all died: Uncle George – Georgie, with female nylon socks in his breast pocket, Auntie Voula, my grandmother, my mother – all those people who had experienced those magical times for which, unlike me, Mit feels no sense of loss. I am suddenly overwhelmed by nostalgia. That day, the Northern wind had blown the waves over the quay of the once Nautical Club which land use changes Mit so strongly opposed: the first example of arbitrary construction in this sacred place. Of course, for many it’s no big deal, since as in the case of the exotic environment of Galaxidi (which for Mit is the area of 5 square kilometres refers to as “38° 22ʹ N 22° 23ʹ E”. Most people don’t know what they have now lost because they didn’t know what they once had as Mit frequently notes (this always scares me, especially when he associates it with opportunities we all miss (my self included) . 

Roziki beach – the obsidian[9], it was all there, in the Kavos house – buoys hanging above our heads – buoys like Sophia’s[10], lemons in a bag – along with other things on the stairs leading up to the third floor. I hadn’t been up there for years. Travel bags hanging, ready for departure; I realized that these could be the sailors’ cabins, which I had never seen. Mit’s bed, with the royal navy blanket – I hardly dared to look at it, out of respect for the ascetic – one of those grey blankets that irritate the skin, this guided tour sometimes made me feel that I barely had the right to look – life, the mock-ups, all ongoing, connected in his eyes, much still unconnected in my mind. The sea, and Delphi on snow-covered Parnassus over the distance – the kore without veils and clouds, handed over to the west. “Make it a little more difficult,” I hear him say to me.

The seagulls fluttered from Auntie Voula’s embroidery into the kitchen. “There is still room for others,” said Captain George. I have almost become one with them, as Auntie Voula sends me kisses through the windowpane on the third floor; it was freezing on that feast of the Epiphany, we were on the balcony, she was inside, outside the flag is flapping – I can’t remember the year – thankfully there were so many. I liked the green frame that I had ordered, for the photograph I had taken of her, from the picture framer at 95 Kolokotroni Street, near the pharmacy of my mother, Maria Mastorikou[11] in Piraeus – what was he called? 

I have stopped at the side of the road, next to a field, and I am writing, while listening to Leonard Cohen’s Suzanne. I am thinking of Mit’s models, the coy ones.

Dimitra Kouzi, Galaxidi, October 2020

Read Mit Mitropoulos in To Galaxidi newspaper:
“Family Moments from a Galaxidi Sailor's Lifetime”, 6/2017
“The Sea Acted the Role of the Muse at the Time”, 2/2019
“On Complexity”, Alzheimer's 2/2017 conference, 6/2019    

The article The ARNode Kavos house welcomes Dimitra Kouzi was first published in the newspaper To Galaxidi, October 2020. It is part of on-going notes towards a documentary on the same subject.

[1] Archive Research Node in progress 

[2] The house of George and Voula (the captain's wife) Mitropoulos. 

[3] Journalist, filmmaker, [email protected] From the guided tour, January 2020. Three floors facing the sea, above and beyond which part of the ‘Delphic Landscape’ extends. The family home is in the process of being transformed into a Research Museum that will be known as the Archive Research Node (ARNode), as just one node in a wider network. By the end of September 2020, two of the four ARNode definition phases had been completed. 

[4] Mit Mitropoulos (baptised Efthymios), Researcher, Environmental Artist ([email protected]) taking over from his parents at 125 Akti Oianthis, (Kavos) Galaxidi.

[5] George Makris, the brother of my grandmother, Eleni Makri, and chief officer on the vessel captained by George Mitropoulos. As a child in Holland, Mit often shared his cabin with him. I remember at 186 Praxitelous St. in Piraeus, the left-hand, single-door wardrobe in the bedroom of G. Makris (Georgie, we called him) which instead of clothing contained all his tools, hanging neatly arranged. 

[6] Mitsa Mitropoulou, Mit’s (also my aunt).

[7] I don’t remember all the names but they included the annular sea bream, peacock wrasse, red scorpionfish, some other brightly coloured ones that looked more like tropical fish, Mediterranean rainbow wrasse, European conger, sand steenbras. And the octopus, which my father, Thodoros Kouzis, fished with a speargun off Voidikas beach (the site where the biological wastewater treatment plant was built years later). It is the islets of Ai Giorgi, Apsifia and Agios Dimitrios, places where we went on day trips in our boat “Dimelana”. These fish have now disappeared, due to pollution and overfishing.  

[8] Darejan Stvilia from Kutaisi--brought up in Sohoumi (in the Abkhazia region Russia annexed by force in recent years). The wonderful Georgian housemaid who, as if a member of the Mitropoulos family, assisted Mit and Auntie Voula when she began to suffer from memory loss, but nevertheless lived well for the next 10 years, up to age of 103. Information and Exercises for people with memory degeneration are available in the library of Galaxidi, the result of Mit’s 10 years of experience with the disease and his 4 Alzheimer's conference presentation. 

 

[9] Obsidian, hard glass formed as a rock, is found in volcanic areas. Sources of obsidian are few; in the Aegean, they are limited to Milos, Antiparos, and Yali. Because of its hardness, Milos obsidian was used in the Neolithic period to make tools and weapons. At Roziki, Mit had located one (of two) workshops sites. There was line-of-sight- visual contact between these sites, which afforded control over approaches by sea. As confirmed by Professor Colin Renfrew (Mit kept in touch with), the obsidian had come from Milos. 

[10] Sophia A. Martinou, The Glass Buoy, Iolkos Publications, 2017.

[11] The drugstore she continued to run following my pharmacist grandfather Dimitris (Mitsos) Mastorikos“ It was there, at 9 Bouboulinas Street, that a group of Galaxidiotes decided to resume publication of To Galaxidi newspaper as an integral part their association”. (Excerpt from To Galaxidi, 7/2018, by D. Kouzi "Our local newspaper in the era of fake news”). 

Both pictures taken from same seating position in 'desk area' ground floor studio (the sur-elevated pavement) (connecting the group of 4 houses facing the water). One photo shows the interior as you turn left, that includes blackboard,tools, found objects, artworks.Turn to your right you face the sea, beyond the coastal road and ,and above and over the water Delphi stands.
Articles, Audience Development, Doc-making, EN, Festivals, People

Good Morning Mr fotis Premiere at the 22nd Thessaloniki Documentary Festival

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Good Morning Mr Fotis

Documentary, 70ʹ, Greece, 2020


Written, Directed, and Produced by Dimitra Kouzi 

In the heart of Athens, in a once desirable residential district. In the 1990s, many Greeks moved out to the suburbs; successive waves of immigrants from the Balkans and former Soviet Union moved in. Since 2009, in Greece’s economic crisis, the area declined, with poverty and gloom spreading and crime rates soaring.
Today, the neighbourhood is home to a diverse array of migrants and refugees from Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, some tourists, and a few old residents.

Fotis Psycharis has been teaching at a regular state school in this neighbourhood for 30 years now. Aged 6–12, most of the school’s pupils are migrant and refugee children, largely unfamiliar with the Greek language and culture. The lack of a common linguistic and cultural background has prompted Fotis to develop other teaching methods and modes of communication. Theatre, a synthesis of many arts, is an essential part of his toolbox.

Watch the trailer.

About The Film

The documentary film Good Morning Mr Fotis goes into the classroom to follow the everyday reality of a 6th Grade at a public elementary school in the heart of Athens. Reflecting the diversity of the area where it is located, near Omonoia Square, this class consists of 17 pupils from 7 different countries, with varying degrees of familiarity with the Greek language and the European culture.

The teacher aims for inclusion, not mere integration. Enlisting creativity in many forms, not exclusively based on the linguistic code, Fotis has for 30 years been developing his own, innovative teaching approach by combining different arts and techniques; he teaches children – irrespective of background – a way of thinking and acting, applying an experiential teaching method that engages the heart, mind, body and senses. Children are given space to explore and discover while developing their personalities – in a film that humorously captures the importance of a teacher who proposes and delivers solutions.

This is a beautiful film, which with great delicacy and skill shows the power of understated goodness to engender hope and effect transformation in both individuals and communities.  You will be rooting for these children and their inspirational teacher to succeed.  His deployment of theatre and philosophy in the classroom to develop understanding and empathy makes a compelling case for the importance of the Humanities in our schools.

Professor Angie Hobbs FRSA

Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy

University of Sheffield

Director’s Note

In this universe, parallel to our own yet so different, just a few kilometres away from where I live, with my own habits, I felt inside me the need to go back to school, at that school.

A school, a hope. Children who are children against all odds. And in this colourful classroom, with its wooden theatre stage, there is space for the joy of learning to flourish – an innate joy, shared by all humans, a path to education, rather than degrees and marks. Words are not what counts here; what counts is actions. And, in the bittersweet comfort of art, the power to transform. Education through the joy of creativity; spontaneous inclusion, rather than integration.

A creative treatment of an infinitely harsh reality just a breath away from Omonia Square and its astounding diversity of faces, ethnicities, and cultures concentrated within a few blocks in a city like Athens, where international inhabitants where few and far between only a few years ago.

Meeting Fotis, an authentic, creative, educated person, introduced me to a luminous side of life – how to be what you do, what you say, without any disconnect; when your job is your life, your work something important to leave behind. A pioneer, yet also a man out of time, as if coming from a few generations back, from another Greece, a country more approachable, slower-moving, wiser, poorer in material terms yet richer, mature, familiar yet distant. I’ve always loved to explore and discover, to travel, meet people, listen to their stories and relay them. I’m grateful for having taken this journey in space and time, for capturing this moment on film. All around us, those incredible children, each in their own way – windows and journeys to new worlds. And that other child, within, once again found a space of its own, the joy of learning and creating.

 

Credits

Written, Directed, and Produced by Dimitra Kouzi

Camera/Sound: Konstantinos Georgoussis

Editing: Nelly Ollivault

Original music composed by Michael Kapoulas

Sound Lab: Kvaribo Sound 

Sound Design/Editing: Vallia Tserou 

Sound Mixing: Kostas Varybopiotis 

Image Lab: 235

Colour Correction/DCP mastering: Sakis Bouzanis 

Poster/Credits/Website Design: Daria Zazirei

Translation/Subtitle Editor: Dimitris Saltabassis

Production Assistant: Rosie Diamantaki

Still Photography: Katerina Tzigotzidou, Mania Benissi

Location Sound Recordist: Aris Athanassopoulos

Special Effects: Yannis Ageladopoulos

Drone: Tassos Fytros 

Trailer: Penelope Kouvara

Legal Advisor: Aris Kontoangelos

Original music published by Illogical Music/Acuatrop LLC

Drawing: Sahel Mirzai (5th Grade, Elementary School 54)

World Sales

Visible Film, Thierry Detaille T +32 477617170 E [email protected]

Press Enquiries

Dimitra Kouzi, Director/Producer
[email protected]

With the kind support of 
The J.F. Costopoulos Foundation 

The film was selected by the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival to participate in Docs in Progress 2019
Docs in Progress 2019 Award – Thessaloniki Documentary Festival – Greek Film Centre 

©Kouzi Productions 2020

Contact

Kouzi Productions
33, Praxitelous St.
105 60 Athens
T +30 2107219909
E [email protected]
W kouziproductions.com

Articles, Doc-making, EN, Festivals

My first Film win​s its first award! the Greek Film Center Award at Docs in Progress 2019!

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It was a fantastic Thessaloniki Festival for me this year. My first ever film as director was selected at Docs in Progress and earned an award from the Greek Film Center! It was selected among ten great projects. During the festival, we had a preparation session with Anna Glogowski (former C.E. at France Television, now doc consultant and festival programmer) and a group rehearsal. The presentation was back to back at Pavlos Zannas Theatre, where we had three minutes to present our film and another eight minutes to show the audience scenes. There was no "show" and no questions from the public. Just straightforward presentations and meetings. That meant that the people who asked to see me were really the people who had chosen and were interested in the project. The film is in postproduction and I am looking for pre-sales, distribution, and partners. I can't begin to describe how proud and happy I am. Thank you all at Agora TDF team (head Yanna Sarri) and thank you to the Greek Film Center for the support and trust in my work!

SCHOOL 54 (working title) by Dimitra Kouzi – Greece (Kouzi Productions). A teacher for 27 years at a public elementary school in central Athens, Fotis Psycharis has developed his own approach. He uses drama to build teams, overcoming the linguistic and cultural barriers of his mostly refugee and immigrant pupils. Following Fotis in class, teaching and developing a play that he has written for the graduation ceremony, this humorous, positive film is a rare opportunity to witness from within a school microcosm in a declining city centre. A teacher and his class at a small public school on the outskirts of Europe provide inspiration for the education of future Europeans. The film is in postproduction, slated for release in summer 2019. Duration approx. 60 min. There will also be a TV version.

Read about Docs in Progress awards:

https://www.filmfestival.gr/en/professionals-b2b/media-press/26899-21st-thessaloniki-documentary-festival-the-awards

Photo: Fani Trypsaki (ΦΑΝΗ ΤΡΥΨΑΝΗ) Motionteam

Articles, Doc-making, EN, Festivals

What more can a documentary be?

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As the future fast approaches, Dimitra Kouzi, raises questions about how evolving technologies are impacting the way we produce and present information
published in Modern Times Review (the European Documentary Magazine) autumn issue 2018.