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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? 

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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.
Articles, Doc-making, EN, People

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.


Audience Development, Doc-making, EN, Interviews, People

Talking about audiences with: Axel Arnö

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Dimitra Kouzi: The idea is to open the discussion about audience development, impact producing, and outreach using journalistic skills to create audiences, to reach audiences, to talk to audiences. What do broadcasters do in that direction?

I thought that talking with somebody with your great experience as a commissioning editor and as a journalist, working at the same time in a channel like SVT would be fantastic in order to share some insights on how broadcasters have the power and mechanism to support documentaries to reach a bigger audience. Or do they?

Axel Arnö: So that's quite a new thing; there is a new profession going: impact producers. And I was at Good Pitch in Copenhagen, where it's all about how to create impact.

Dimitra Kouzi: What would your spontaneous reaction be, if I asked you how you understand the phrase ‘audience development’? What is the audience for you? Who is the audience?

Axel Arnö: I think all filmmakers must have some idea of whom they are speaking to. Sometimes filmmakers are so immersed in their own story that they are not really talking to the receiver. Their focus is to be true to their artistic beliefs. I totally respect that, but we must also be aware of the fact that there is somebody at the other end. It's very important to visualise that someone is receiving, which is something I very often say to filmmakers. You need to understand that even if you think that this film communicates really well, if an audience sits there in the dark and doesn't understand what's happening in the film, if you lose that audience because you are making decisions so as to make the film more visually appealing to you, then I think you are on the wrong path. I think you always have to think about who is going to receive your film, and what you want to say with that.

We often have discussions about impact as well, of course – how to present the film in the best way. Impact for us publishers is probably the best we can do to release it at the right time to give the film as much attention as possible. In terms of long-term impact, we can help with exposure, but we don't do impact campaigns. I think our role as commissioning editors is to work together with the filmmaker to make the film as powerful as possible, as understandable as possible, as true to fact as possible in order for it to become a tool for change – which is what many filmmakers want. We are in this business to change the world, so we want to have change, we want to make a difference. I'm really sad when a film I've been working on has low ratings, or nothing happens – nothing in the papers, no reviews – it just feels like a waste of time. We now think even more, together with the filmmakers, how to prolong a film’s life.

Dimitra Kouzi: How do you do that as a channel?

Axel Arnö: Here in the documentary department, we call ourselves ‘web-first’. Ratings are not as important. We need to be out there on the platform where the audiences are. The problem for us is that we have an audience that is quite big in broadcast, but on the web, it's significant smaller. Because we have multinational competitors. SVT has a market share of around 35% in broadcast, and we have been very stable; we are still the biggest broadcaster. And on the internet, we have around 12% market share, and we are number 4 after YouTube, Facebook, and Netflix. With Facebook, it's because they have this autoplay, when you scroll through the Facebook stream, they count the streams even if they are quiet, which is not really fair.

Dimitra Kouzi: Are you competing with YouTube, Facebook, and Netflix?

Axel Arnö: YouTube has a completely different audience. But it's an audience that we want, too. It's really difficult to compete with YouTube. And Netflix, of course, they have a lot of money now. So, we will probably struggle to keep at the top. As a public service broadcaster, we need to be everywhere – your mother, my mother, us, our kids, which is a challenge. Those are very different audiences, and one particular film might have more of one kind of audience than another.

Dimitra Kouzi: In current affairs, you probably have more men and older men, don’t you?

Axel Arnö: That is probably true. All traditional current affairs will be viewed by an older audience. They are used to talking heads and a voice of God that tells you how it is. Which is not the way young audiences understand the world. But I have to defend solid journalism with real facts. So, I think it is a good thing that we do what we do. And I strongly protest against anyone who says that objective journalism is dead. We strive to be correct, fair and impartial. It is really our mission to be true – otherwise we will be dead very soon.

A creative documentary can of course be more subjective. Then, you have to be transparent about how subjective you are and what you are doing. You cannot lie.

Dimitra Kouzi: I agree that objective journalism is certainly not dead, and strong and good journalism continues to be a public broadcaster’s strong card. You often see this tendency to train people who are reporters, cameramen, sound recordists on the spot, like kamikazes who cover the news where it is happening, in order to cut expenses. This is an interesting situation happening everywhere: to use citizens to replace journalists or reporters. How do you as a public broadcaster use these other media which are available? I mean the radio and all the others in order to report, share, and promote the content you create?

Axel Arnö: We are special cases. In Sweden, public TV broadcasting and radio broadcasting separated in the 1970s. I think the reason was that they didn't want television to ‘eat’ everything, because we have so many expenses and we are so much bigger than the radio. But there is now a fear to break this freedom about our presence online. National-newspaper editors think they should go back to broadcast television. But then we are answering that this is just stupid and wish that we were all online. Nobody will tell newspapers to go back and be printed on paper only. So, we all are going to be in the same arena. But I think, thank God we have public television, because we still have money to do real investigative journalism, and soon enough we will be the only ones to have the power to do that.

Dimitra Kouzi: How much is the budget you have?

Axel Arnö: I have a pretty flexible budget so that I can buy, pre-buy, and co-produce films. And sometimes I make a full commission, depending on the subject. Often, I find new projects through the EBU Documentary group, or through my own network. I also try to push my colleagues when I see that we should do more about a specific issue, like you probably heard about Why Slavery? That came from a couple of broadcasters, and it's now going to be six programs about modern slavery. So far, more than 30 partners have committed to broadcasting during the same week.

Dimitra Kouzi: When is the premiere?

Axel Arnö: Right now, the launch is expected in October 2018. I think in terms of impact this is really something we as public-service broadcasters can deliver. By pooling our resources and broadcasting simultaneously, we hope to create a big world-wide discussion about modern slavery.

I can use my network to initiate new projects or to talk about what we should do as public-service broadcasters. We can make a huge difference!

For example, we did a film called India's Daughter, and that film was phenomenal, because it was broadcast in one week, I think in 20 countries, and it exploded all over the world – mainly because India decided to ban it, and that made headlines everywhere. It was a very good film, and luckily we could make a coordinated effort so everybody aired at the same time, and it was a huge success.

We also collaborate to find the best new films, whether already in the market or upcoming. And, of course I go to all these financing forums, I go everywhere. But that's because I want to find the best material.

Dimitra Kouzi: You also act as a producer. What is the target you want to reach? You said that you have to be everywhere – that's a big task.

Axel Arnö: Yes, it is. But the headline of your talk will be ‘creating audiences,’ or do you mean ‘finding audiences’? I think you have to be true to your own personal beliefs. I'm not going out there chasing young audiences; I think young people will come when we do a big thing. I see in festivals, as well, there is a much younger audience, and they like these investigative films. In a documentary film, an investigation can be presented in so many ways. You can do a personal film like in Gasland, or an investigative piece like Inside Job. Icarus is also a very investigative film, but very personal. It can be both: investigative and personal.

Dimitra Kouzi: There’s a gap. On the one hand, television is trying to reach young audiences. On the other, these people do not watch TV. They also don’t go to the cinema. Some of them go fanatically to festivals, and then after the festivals the films are ‘lost’ again.

Axel Arnö: In terms of views, I think it's much more. All the films here that go on cinema have very low ticket sales. But again: exposure. Sometimes we agree to a holdback, because it's better for the momentum, so you can go touring with the film, you can get headlines in all the local newspapers. But sometimes I don't want to wait for a theatrical window, or an Oscar run. If you really want to have impact, I think it might be good with a short festival run; then, it should go to television, because people will want to see the film.

Dimitra Kouzi: There’s a recipe: do a film festival run and then go to television.

Axel Arnö: I want the message to lead the audience, and we still have the mass audience. My first slot, which is 52 minutes, I'm trying to experiment a little both in terms of subjects and in terms of storytelling. It's gaining recognition and viewership, and this is after 35 years. But it's not only the old people – there is a generation that is finding out these things. I think we can do a lot more when it comes to finding the audience. We have to work a lot in the future to have contact with the audience.

Dimitra Kouzi: But how? How would you go about it if you had freedom to do it now?

Axel Arnö: I have freedom; I don't have time. I would probably go somewhere in rural Sweden. It's a big country, with many areas where we never really go and talk to people about their needs and what they want. I think we should do that. I don't know exactly how to do it, you know, how to have a dialog with the audience. Sometimes I'm not the best one; filmmakers might have a better recipe for finding their audiences. Because if you know who you are speaking to, if you know where you are coming from, it’s always good. But we also have different objectives sometimes, filmmakers and television. We are public; we need to reach the whole population and make sure that we can offer something for each and every one, and we should be everywhere in the nation.

Dimitra Kouzi: But what about rural Sweden? What is going on there?  

Axel Arnö: I think, because there is a notion that we have the same development as in most European countries and the United States, that there is a growing disbelief about mainstream media, and that's bad for democracy. We should go out there and listen. And American media doesn't listen, and the way the media in Germany or the Netherlands do it is maybe too little. We have to be aware of what's going on.

Dimitra Kouzi: Offering programmes after listening to what the people say.

Axel Arnö: Perhaps yes, but we are the public broadcaster. We can't have groups of people that don't find the public broadcast interesting or that don’t take part in what we do. We need to be there for them as well, and there I think we’ve failed and we should be better. We have to try hard to find them.

Many people are not aware of what we are doing. When I tell some people what we offer, they find it fantastic. They just didn’t know. We need to be in people's agendas somehow.

Dimitra Kouzi: What is your personal listening and viewing habits? I know that you are a broadcast fan of these crime series. Or is it over?

Axel Arnö: You mean True Crime? I'm a bit tired of it. How much true crime can we have?

Dimitra Kouzi: I would like to hear you as audience, what are your personal viewing and listening habits?

Axel Arnö: Oh, I watch so much! But I mainly watch rough cuts, so I'm pretty damaged. Yet, I like to watch well-made series. O.J. Simpson: Made in America is very good; I like The Promise. That is a crime story, about a murder case in the U.S. I watch other series and documentaries, as well. In my spare time, I can watch Homeland or an arts and culture doc. I'm very curious, so if it's a good drama I will watch it. But I'm a journalism junkie, so if there is an investigative story with a personal touch, that will be my favourite. I saw a couple of great films at Sundance, such as Icarus; unfortunately, Netflix picked up many of them. It’s really hard for us to compete on American films. Of course, if a cool film premieres at Sundance with all rights available, Netflix will take it. I think they spent 20 million dollars on documentaries this year. Crazy.

Dimitra Kouzi: Is that good for the documentary industry?

Axel Arnö: Well, it's more money into the business. We as public broadcasters have to adapt by making more and better things ourselves. So, I had a discussion yesterday that we need to commit a bit earlier, work closer with the filmmakers that we like, and secure our territories. It's going to be a rights war for VOD rights. Because everybody wants sort of the same thing now.

Dimitra Kouzi: I wanted to ask you about VOD programmes.

Axel Arnö: Yes, we have to be as attractive as anyone. We have so much on our VOD platform. And it's free.

Dimitra Kouzi: I was talking to Simon Kilmurry about his job at POV, and he was telling me, of course they have a different structure there, that every time they launch a film they sit down together with the marketing and the communication departments and make a strategy for that. People don't know – that's the problem. Because we are the public broadcaster, we think that people know about it, but people don't.

Axel Arnö: I can give you one example of where we made a difference and how we treat the audience. We had a film called Cries from Syria, which is an HBO film by Evgeny Afineevsky. He was Oscar-nominated with his previous one, Winter on Fire. So, he made this film. It's about the victims in Syria. It's long, it's extremely graphic, and it's devastating to watch. You are filled with rage, sorrow, and despair. It’s an important film but very hard to watch. So, we made a special introduction where one of our news anchors interviewed Evgeny; then, there was the film, where we warned right before the most graphic images, and after the film, after almost two hours, we went to a studio discussion on Syria. This is how we can create an atmosphere around a film. Because the audience has many needs. And just because we did these things, I think the film landed very well. Had we not done anything, we might have had the audience against us. It got a lot of love, and it's spreading now. But it was a long discussion.

Dimitra Kouzi: I think that this is what all the event-based screenings in cinemas also do. That's why they are successful, they engage the audience to react. And these theme evenings are really something special, and should be on television, too.

Axel Arnö: How to create an audience is also marketing. If you have done a journalistic job, you need to use all your tools to make as many people as possible to watch it. We have our own trailers, of course, we have our audience, we have also sometimes used social media to promote what we do; we make small excerpts of the film, hoping they go viral. We have a newsletter with around 60,000 subscribers, in which every Sunday morning they get links to all the upcoming films and can watch them.

Dimitra Kouzi: On the VOD platform?

Axel Arnö: Yes. We try to engage with the audience as much as we can, and we can always be better. It's about the audience finding us, and us finding the audience. We also have focus groups. We have all the tools of a public broadcaster.

Dimitra Kouzi: You have focus groups and working groups? So, you talk with representatives from the audience?

Axel Arnö: My department does it all the time. And we have other tools, for example an audience group that have agreed to be interviewed by us, and that can be segmented according to education, age, everything. So, you can have a slice of that group and post questions to them, engage with them, and find out whether something works, if they understand it, if there something that would interest them. We use it more and more.

Dimitra Kouzi: Is this new?

Axel Arnö: That's new. We have done it in different ways before, such as focus groups, more irregularly; but now the tools are getting better.

Dimitra Kouzi: This is great. Do you know if other EBU members use that?

Axel Arnö: I would definitely think so.

Dimitra Kouzi: But you are very innovative, so I don't know if other countries from Eastern and Southern Europe do it.

Axel Arnö: I don't know. I get the impression that the broadcast world is getting a bit divided. Some of us are still going mostly for ratings. Ratings are still very important but will become less and less important. When we exchange statistics from the web, it seems that it's a big difference. So, it’s a beginning: We don't really know much about the web audience; we should know more about them.

Dimitra Kouzi: Can you elaborate a bit on exchanging internet clicks?

Axel Arnö: It's just the way we see the shift from broadcast to the web. People stop watching linear television, that group is getting bigger by the week, they cut out television from their habits. And then everything will be by choice – you will not just adapt to the programme because you are watching TV. You have to actively choose. So, what do you choose? And then, in that universe, we don't only have all the channels available in Sweden, but we also have all the VOD giants. So, it's completely different. And we don't know as much as we know about our television audience, because the television measuring system is very easy to work with, and then we know pretty much everything about these families. On the internet, how can you get the same depth of information for people sitting in front of a computer? We don't. Not yet. But I am told that new measuring tools are coming soon.

Dimitra Kouzi: I think this trend is something all EBU members together should explore. It's huge and it's there. You hear it all the time: ‘I don't watch television.’

Axel Arnö: Indeed. You can talk to the media director. Or the TV director. They will, now, because they do services, they develop tools, and they can speak more about how divided Europe is in terms of how people are watching TV.

Dimitra Kouzi: Do you think that these changes will also apply to documentary viewers?

Axel Arnö: Documentaries are at the forefront. Most people who watch documentaries will watch them online. Most people my age and downwards watch films on computers, on phones, or on the iPad, not on television.

Dimitra Kouzi: Then it makes sense that there are television broadcasters that screen documentaries at midnight, because nobody would watch them anyway.

Do you have any statistics for that from VOD, when do people watch documentaries?

Axel Arnö: No, I don't. But we should find out.

Dimitra Kouzi: Because the slots are very specific, and when you see the numbers, when people see documentaries, this could bring about change.

Last but not least, could you tell me what documentary slots or whatever the documentaries at SVT are? You have the current affairs, you have feature length etc. Just briefly tell me what is being broadcast as documentaries.

Axel Arnö: We have many slots. Weekly, we have a lot of prime-time slots. But let's go through the week: First of all, we publish every Sunday for the coming week. Then, on that Sunday night is the first slot, a 60-minute slot at 10 o'clock. And that is about 35-40 programmes per year, comprising the best journalistic documentaries that I can find. It's topical: films about war in Syria, about U.S. elections, French elections. My ideal is that by watching these programmes you will understand what's happening in the world. Whereas the news is only fragments, this will be the whole picture. And then, I have a feature-length slot, like a year-round film festival, where I try to find the most talked about, the best new awarded films made in the world. I try to be part of them. And that's also about 35mm films. Then we have the domestic documentaries, films about Sweden. And that's a weekly 60-minute prime-time slot, Thursdays at 8 o'clock.

Dimitra Kouzi: When is the feature documentary film festival?

Axel Arnö: It's at 22.00 on Tuesdays. They are pretty strong on the web. People find them. I try to find documentaries that are oriented to the festival crowd. But in a really cinematic festival, like Nyon, a film will probably have a slow, poetic narrative, because that's what you do in cinema films. On TV or the web, the landscape is the opposite, you need to have a really strong narrative. In the cinema, films should have a good ending. In the TV or web landscape, you won’t survive without a strong start. Unless a film has had a prior life on cinema and people have a previous knowledge about it.  But if you haven't seen or heard about a film, I think the start is everything. That's a message to filmmakers. Everything is about the audience. You have to hook them, and then tell them your story.

Dimitra Kouzi: At pitching, nobody asks how a film begins; everybody wants to know the end.

Axel Arnö: That's just to create an image in your head about what this person is trying to achieve. I think audiences nowadays are so spoiled with really strong storytelling that it also creates new demands for super-strong, skilful storytelling docs. There are now experiments, hiring feature script writers for writing the script for a doc, even if it is in production. Because you will have an A plot, a B plot, a C plot, and you need to know what to do with it. There is also an increased demand for series, but they are a bit harder for a broadcaster to place in their schedules. Sometimes we can, sometimes we can't. But on the web, everything is possible of course.

Dimitra Kouzi: But this is another trend, series.

Axel Arnö: Yes, it's a different thing: Some films work well as series. The Promise is a good example, because that film was made as a two-hour special, two times 90′, three times 60′, and six times 25′. That’s a good case study; it’s interesting to explore the different demands from different broadcasters.

I think that BBC broadcast the feature version, the one-time version. And then, simultaneously they put out the six-times 25′. And they had a million views the first week on the series.

Dimitra Kouzi: It’s interesting, but it makes sense, because the audience is different.

Axel Arnö: Yes, but if you want to talk about how to create an audience, you also have to be aware of that: different formats will probably suit different audiences. So, of course, you should do your director's cut, which is important for you. But then, it would also be good if you are open to cutting it in different lengths, because there might be different audiences out there for the film. Sometimes it's impossible because of budget constraints.

Dimitra Kouzi: Let’s go back to the slots.

Axel Arnö: Domestic is on Thursdays. Then we have cultural slots – that’s not my department – both domestic and international, every Friday at 8 o'clock. But, of course, super prime time on Friday is very difficult because there are very popular shows all around. But they are doing a good job. My acquisition colleagues are buying loads more topics – nature, history, wildlife. They have also started to buy Channel-4-type docs, which is more sensational. And, of course, they get an audience. So, there are many hours of docs. My responsibility is the current affairs and the feature-length slots. I do different things, as well, Swedish films, special projects.

Dimitra Kouzi: Budgets are not increasing to cater for the need to create impact campaigns around the films by the producers.

Axel Arnö: I'm not paying more because they need to make impact.

Dimitra Kouzi: Exactly, it's in the budget, and it has to be covered by the budget.

Axel Arnö: Yes, but that makes sense; we have to be independent, so, we can't fund the impact production. That's why they have things like Good Pitch. These are problems we can't cope with. They raise funds. For example, Borneo Case is now starting its tour, and I'm in discussions about when SVT should broadcast it. They've got some money from impact, from other sources. Could be interesting to talk to them about their impact campaign.

Axel Arnö became a Commissioning Editor at SVT in 1998. Previously a newspaper reporter. Since his move to national television, Axel has been reporter, editor and editorial executive. He became the Editor of SVT’s flagship current affairs magazine Striptease and later created the investigative documentary strand Dokument inifrån. Since 2004, he works at SVT’s documentary department, dealing mainly with international co-productions (current affairs, creative, social documentaries). He was an original partner in the Why Democracy? series. Axel is chairman of the Eurovision Documentary Group.

This interview was edited for clarity and brevity by Dimitris Saltabassis

 

Doc-making, EN, Festivals, Interviews, People

Interview La Chana, IDFA’s Audience Award 2016

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La Chana is the portrait of the self-taught Gypsy dancer, Antonia Santiago Amado, an amazing flamenco dancer and with it the personal story of a now elderly woman. Excellent editing with archival dance scenes and highlights of her career (here with Peter Sellers in The Bobo). Full of humour and passion, a great scene where she talks about Dali, how he attended her performances bringing along his “cat”, his leopard, which was upset by her tap-dancing and roared!

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Lucija Stotevic the director and producer of the film originally comes from Croatia, but moved to Austria when she was 6. While studying architecture in Edinburgh, she discovered she loved film more, so she moved to the Czech Republic to study film for one very intensive year. After that, she moved to Barcelona, Spain, and started to work for production companies and independently doing video journalism for newspapers like The Guardian. La Chana was the reason why she set up her own production company. She produced and directed this feature-length documentary against all the financial obstacles for a newcomer. The film has participated in a series of workshops, such as EsoDoc and Rough Cut Boutique. Four years later, La Chana was premiering at Idfa Panorama and was also nominated for the best female-directed film. While this interview was taking place in her co-working space in Barcelona, her seven-month-old daughter was one floor above, playing in the baby facility provided by this co-working space.

Is it common in Spain to have a baby facility if you are a working woman? No, it’s a completely new thing; we are pioneers and trying it out. I was like, “This is perfect” because, she is depending on me, but I need to work. My poor baby is seven months old and has been to five countries in seven months.

So, you were pregnant while doing the film? During the editing process, my belly was just growing. So, I was thinking, if she doesn't have a sense of rhythm, I will be surprised. She is getting so much flamenco, she’d better have a good sense of rhythm.

_mg_9526Do you think your background in architecture influences this way of reacting and thinking? This structure you have, is it coming from there? There are overlaps between film and architecture. For example, in the working process, in both film and architecture, you work on different aspects and still always have an overall picture the whole time, too. It’s also a echnical and creative mix, and I think there are a lot of crossovers, which is actually why I got into film. I did my final project on editing theory in film and architecture and was looking at how these two things can influence each other in the creative process, in the way you think about montage and architecture and construction, and the way you think about montage and constructing through sequences in storytelling. There is similarity. During that period, I became much more interested in film than architecture, so my boyfriend at the time told me, ‘You seem so much more into the film aspect, why don't you just go to film school?’ and I thought that actually was not such a bad idea.

_mg_0760How did you meet La Chana?
I met her through my teacher, Beatriz del Pozo. La Chana is her ‘maestro’. Beatriz always talks about La Chana, about her rhythms, about her beats, about how she had fallen into the shadows and she shouldn't have because she is an amazing, wonderful artist and does things nobody else had done. She put some videos on for me when I was at her house, of La Chana dancing and I was just dumbstruck. I think the one that really struck me was the one where La Chana was dancing in The Bobo [the Peter Sellers film], where she is nineteen years old and looks like she is forty – the passion and the pain and the suffering – she was like a sorceress!
Beatriz suggested that we meet so we went to her home, and she prepared an amazing paella for us. She was very open with me from the beginning in terms of what happened to her, she just told me everything. There was so much story here, and this character was amazing. She could carry a film as an individual character – nothing else was necessary. I proposed we start working together, and the first thing she told me was, ‘OK, come to the party on Saturday. I am having my whole family here, but only you can come, you can’t bring any men with you, no camera guys, and if my family ask you, tell them that you are a student of mine.’ She was very careful, and what worried her the most was her own environment, and how they were going to react if they knew she was doing this film. But then, little by little, she became much more open about this.

It does come across in the film that she has this worry about how others will think of things and that she was always between these two things, what do others think and what is my own soul telling me. Exactly, very much so. It has always been a struggle for her, this combination of ‘this is me, this is what I want, what I am feeling and this is what I am supposed to be doing.

How did you deal with all these layers of her character, all these directions the film could take?
There were many directions the film could have taken, as there were many elements to deal with: her art, the social circumstances, the abuse. But I think going into general topics would have been a mistake. So, it was very important that we just stick to the core, and let her lead it, and just look more how these different things influenced her, rather than what they are. And La Chana’s core is her dance, her art. That’s why there is a narrative told through the transformation of the way you perceive her dance in the film. When you watch the early part of the film and you discover who she was, you see her dancing and you think, ‘Wow, amazing dancer,’ but it’s only when you find out those different obstacles that she had, that her dances take on other meanings, other layers. You understand all that emotional charge then. That was very important to me, that we go to where her core is – her music, her rhythm, her dance – and to do that we should understand her pain and her suffering and her environment, and her tragedy, and stay close to that.

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I could see the passion of La Chana but I could also feel your passion in doing this film. I am sure you had difficulties in many ways to make it. How did you balance these two roles – director and producer?
I think the way the documentary world is today, if I look at it from the producers’ perspective, most people would have just put this film into the drawer looking at it in terms of financing and what was possible to raise, unfortunately. That was one of my worries initially, because we started this film exactly when the crisis hit, so we had the problem that the arts were the first thing to get cut – production companies were closing left, right and centre. Everybody was telling me, ‘We love the film, we love the idea but we don't know if we are going to survive one more year, and it will be very difficult to get funding for your film.’ We had a lot of interest also at the international level, but this was complicated, because of the fact that it is character-driven, a human-interest story, but of a character who is not so well-known outside of Spain – I mean she is not so well known inside of Spain either, except to the older generation. Only Spanish is spoken, and it was very hard to find co-producers who could do anything. In the end, I established a production company in order to be able to produce it, and then we eventually started getting interest from a direct audience. We ended up raising a huge part, more than 50% of our budget, from individuals. Otherwise, it would have been impossible. It was funded by women mostly. Women wanted to watch this film.

4-17In a film like La Chana it is important that you are a woman. Do you think that the fact that you were a woman filmmaker made her trust you and open up to tell her story? Was it important that you were a woman?
I think so. She grew up in such a macho society that I think there are certain things that she would certainly not share with a man. It made it easier for her to relate to me and open up to me. Initially, one of the things I was worried about is that I am a foreigner and I think that played as an advantage for me because, especially in the beginning, she didn't feel threatened by me. She thought ‘the girl with the funny accent’, you know (laughing). That, in some way, helped her to relax.

You are not only stubborn, but very smart, too. I wanted to ask you a bit more about flamenco?
I am interested from an intellectual point of view but you can’t be shy and perform in flamenco. I absolutely adore it and I loved learning it, but I wouldn't describe myself as a flamenco dancer. In order to be really good, you need to be really raw and really let everything come out; show everything that you are. In flamenco for it to work you have to let all that fall, and I am too private of a person to do that.

In the film, you talk about the aging process, the loss of acceptance, but also the reinvention. You manage to do this very smoothly. I wanted to hear more about that coming from you, what are your thoughts about aging and reinvention?
What La Chana shows us in a very nice way is that you have to accept the passing of time and that you can do something with it; you don’t have to just sit there and do nothing anymore. She demonstrates it so beautifully, that you can’t let your passions die even if you are physically getting older. You have to find a way to change them into a format that you can still enjoy.

Through the film, you helped her do this also, to go back.
We kind of inspired her to go back on stage, which she loves; she loves the attention, she loves the audience, but she also loves being filmed. She is living with memories but quite isolated. Now, I think we won’t be able to stop her anymore (laughing) – she wants to go everywhere and is going to be the great diva again, and she will do anything.

_mg_0048What was her reaction when she saw the film?
She always said she prayed for us (the film team), but when I showed her the film in January she told me she stopped praying for me. Over a nine-month period.

Why?
She hated it; she had a really hard time with it, which was normal. I mean, I was expecting her to react, but she reacted very strongly. It might sound sadistic and horrible, but i thought, ‘OK, this is a good sign’. Because if she loved it from the beginning, it means we didn’t really go under the surface. It had to affect her; it wouldn't be normal if it didn’t affect her because it’s her life. There is a psychological process she never went through. It was extremely difficult, and she was very angry at me, but by the time we showed her a final version, after many months had passed, she had had time to process it and now stands behind it.

This is the films Trailer. The film won the audience award at IDFA 2016. Shoot in Barcelona, here is the video message to accept the award.