Monat: November 2017

Veröffentlicht am
von

Director Iannis Smaragdis on his Film “Kazantzakis” and on Being “Chosen” by the Subject

Smaragdis2

Renowned Greek film director Iannis Smaragdis’ new film “Kazantzakis” is scheduled for release November 2017. In an event titled “The Greek Light through Nikos Kazantzakis” at the Hellenic Centre of London, on May, 22, at 7.15 pm, Iannis Smaragdis will present the making of his new film. This event is held in the framework of 2017 as the year dedicated to the Cretan writer Nikos Kazantzakis and is supported by the Embassy of Greece in London.

The film, based on Kazantzakis autobiographical novel “Report to Greco”, deals with the fascinating personality of Kazantzakis, one of the most prolific figures in Greek literature whose work boasts many translations worldwide, the Greek landscape that molded him, his philosophical and metaphysic quests. Through his existential search around the world for the implementation of the ideas of Christ, Buddha and Lenin in real life, and through his hero Odysseus, Kazantzakis realizes his philosophy of the Cretan Glance: „Life is a bumpy road and one must walk it with dignity and bravery.“. The life of Nikos Kazantzakis is a story of love, faith and strength of one author who survived the adversities and cruelties of his time, making his life’s work live through the ages.

Born in 1946, in Heraklion, Crete, Iannis Smaragdis, a veteran director of successful TV series, has specialized in historic biographies such as “Cavafy” (1996), “El Greco” (2007), and “God Loves Caviar” (2012).

In an interview published in the latest issue of the Newsletter of the Press and Communication Office of the Embassy of Greece in London*, Smaragdis underlined that he felt he owed this film to the great writer – with whom he shared the same birthplace – in order to express his gratitude for Kazantzakis’ work:

How did you decide to make this movie/tribute to Nikos Kazantzakis?

It seems like I was meant to make a movie about Kazantzakis. The house I was born in is only 300 metres away from where the writer was born and another 300 metres from El Greco’s house. These three spots form a rectangular triangle. I feel it is my debt to this great writer -the most widely read Greek writer worldwide after Homer- with whom I share the same birthplace.

kazatzakisfilm4

Could you tell us a few words about the plot and any difficulties you may have faced, during the filming?

The filming started in September in our beloved Crete and it has since taken place in Heraklion, Chania, Ayios Nikolaos, and then Athens, Aegina, Salamina, Lavrio, Legraina, Southern France and Berlin. I have to admit that we have experienced an unprecedented war, mainly from the vicious cinematic lobby of Athens, as they intensely tried to boycott the film. Do not forget that Kazantzakis himself also experienced the same war from the literary lobby of Athens and as a result both the author and Greece lost the Nobel Prize in literature!

However, the biggest difficulty we facedwas its funding. During my whole life, I have been a „beggar of love“ looking for money to complete my films, but this time it has been a real pain to find the money it took to make this film. Fortunately, there were good Greeks and good Cretans without whose help this movie would not have been completed. The blessed, generous and great-hearted Cretan AEGEAN’s Theodoros Vassilakis, the great Hertz’s Emmanoula Vassilakis, Leonidas Frangiadakis, Managing Director at the National Bank of Greece, intelligent banker and great Cretan, the Vardinoyannis family with their “Audiovisual”, who supported us strongly, and many others.

When will the film be released?

The long-lasting shooting is over and now the film is in the stage of editing and the music is being composed by the great composer, Minos Matsas. The film will be released in Greece by “Audiovisual” this November, on the 23th. The same company released also our previous work, “El Greco”, which sold the unprecedented record of 1,200,000 tickets.

seasideWhat is different between this movie and your previous ones?

I don’t know… What I do know, however, is that people who ‘create’ do not choose their subjects, but it is the other way round …They choose us… And to put it in another way, Kazantzakis has said: „A demon is inside of me but it is not me. I am just the donkey he rides on and he goes – where does he go? The demon knows, I don’t. He prods me and I walk. Maybe I am a Being of a Master I don’t know but I serve him, whether this is right or wrong!” Personally, I assume that the first reason that prompted me to touch this “giant” is my unlimited love for Nikos Kazantzakis, who has been a comforting “companion” to me since the age of 14. So, the less I could do in order to „show“ him my gratitude “up there” was to create this film.

And a few words about the event here in London – what should we expect?

Firstly, I would like to thank Mrs Leventis and Mrs Agatha Kalisperas who gave us the space to present footage of the film at the Hellenic Center, which is part of the events honouring Nikos Kazantzakis, since this year has been proclaimed by the Hellenic Ministry of Culture as “The Year of Nikos Kazantzakis”.

Other participants in the event will be Niki Stavrou, Director of Kazantzakis Publications, a great woman who is distinguished for her unselfishness and friendliness and a great pillar of the dissemination of Nikos Kazantzakis‘ high-profile work, architect Mr. Yiannis Tziros, Ms Marina Kalogirou, who plays Eleni Kazantzaki in the film, as well as a representative of the General Secretariat of Greeks Abroad of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

monk

At this point, I would like to mention that the event is under the auspices of the Embassy of Greece in London and supported by the Hellenic Tourism Office in the UK and Aegean Airlines.

It will also be an invitation to the distinguished Greek-Cypriot community of London that loves and supports culture, which is necessary in order to keep “Hellenism” alive. I am extremely confident that this film will find great support.

Can you „reveal“ something about your future plans?

The next movie that I will be working on is „Ioannis Kapodistrias“, a film based on the unknown life of a great Greek and the first Governor of the modern era of Greece. The scenario has already being written by Dimitris Pelirakis, a man of unique intelligence, the most thorough ‘connoisseur’ of Kapodistrias’ personality, work and visions. Kapodistrias was killed by ‘Greek hands’, which destroyed also the future of our country. If Kapodistrias had had the chance to organize Greece the way he had envisioned, our country would have been the leading example in education and culture.

* Many thanks to Alexis Georgiades, Press and Communication Counsellor – Embassy of Greece in London

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP6tA2dWmCc]

Veröffentlicht am
von

We endure potholes and live in fear of collapsing highway bridges because our leaders wanted these very special people to have an even larger second yacht

Photograph: Alamy

It’s not enough to say, in response to the Paradise Papers revelations, that we already knew that rich people parked their money in offshore tax havens, where their piles accumulate far from the scrutiny of our government. Nor is it enough to say that we were already aware that we live in a time of “inequality.”

What we have learned this week is the clinical definition of the word. What we have learned is how much the rich and the virtuous have been hiding away and where they’re hiding it. Yes, there are sinister-looking Russian capitalists involved. But there’s also our favorite actors and singers. Our beloved alma mater, supposedly a charitable institution. Everyone with money seems to be in on it.

We’re also learning that maybe we’ve had it backwards all along. Tax havens on some tropical island aren’t some sideshow to western capitalism; they are a central reality. Those hidden billions are like an unseen planet whose gravity is pulling our politics and our economy always in a certain direction. And this week we finally began to understand what that uncharted planet looks like; we started to grasp its mass and its power.

Think about it like this. For decades Americans have been erupting in anger at what they can see happening to their beloved middle-class world. We think we know what the culprit is; we can see it vaguely through a darkened glass. It’s “elitism”. It’s a “rigged system”. It’s people who think they’re better than us. And for decades we have lashed out. At the immigrant next door. At Jews. At Muslims. At school teachers. At public workers who are still paid a decent wage. Our fury, unrelenting, grows and grows.

We revolt, but it turns out we have chosen the wrong political leader. We revolt again; this time, the leader is even worse.

This week we are coming face to face with a big part of the right answer: it’s that the celebrities and business leaders we have raised up above ourselves would like to have nothing to do with us. Yes, they are grateful for the protection of our laws. Yes, they like having the police and the marine corps on hand to defend their property.

Yes, they eat our food and breathe our air and expect us to keep these pure and healthy; they demand that we get educated before we may come and work for them, and for that purpose they expect us to pay for a vast system of public schools. They also expect us to watch their movies, to buy their products, to use their software. They expect our (slowly declining) middle class to be their loyal customers.

But those celebrities and business types would prefer not to do what it takes to support all this. That burden’s on us. Oh, they’re happy to haul billions out of our economy and use us up in the workplace, but maintaining the machinery that keeps it all running – that’s on us.

I don’t want to go too far here. I know that what the billionaires and the celebrities have done is legal. They merely took advantage of the system. It’s the system itself, and the way it was deliberately constructed to achieve these awful ends, that should be the target of our fury.

For decades Americans have lashed out against taxation because they were told that cutting taxes would give people an incentive to work harder and thus make the American economy flourish. Our populist leaders told us this – they’re telling us this still, as they reform taxes in Washington – and they rolled back the income tax, they crusaded against the estate tax, and they worked to keep our government from taking action against offshore tax havens.

In reality, though, it was never about us and our economy at all. Today it is obvious that all of this had only one rationale: to raise up a class of supermen above us. It had nothing to do with jobs or growth. Or freedom either. The only person’s freedom to be enhanced by these tax havens was the billionaire’s freedom. It was all to make his life even better, not ours.

Think, for a moment, of how this country has been starved so the holders of these offshore accounts might enjoy their private jets in peace. Think of what we might have done with the sums we have lost to these tax strategies over the decades. All the crumbling infrastructure that politicians love to complain about: it should have – and could have – been fixed long ago.

Think of all the young people saddled with catastrophic student-loan debt: we should have – could have – made that unnecessary. Think of all the decayed small towns, and the dying rust belt cities, and the drug-addicted hopeless: all of them should have – could have – been helped.

But no. Instead America chose a different project. Our leaders raised up a tiny class of otherworldly individuals and built a paradise for them, made their lives supremely delicious. Today they hold unimaginable and unaccountable power.

We endure potholes and live in fear of collapsing highway bridges because our leaders wanted these very special people to have an even larger second yacht. Our kids sit in overcrowded classrooms in underfunded schools so that a handful of exalted individuals can relax on their own private beach.

Today it is these same golden figures with their offshore billions who host the fundraisers, hire the lobbyists, bankroll the think tanks and subsidize the artists and intellectuals.

This is their democracy today. We just happen to live in it.

  • Thomas Frank is a Guardian columnist