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1. The movie starts here, it is called "Inside Outside"
2. and Vyron stars in it 3. we see him happily hopping around here
4. Vyron was an actor at the time, and Anixi was a salesgirl
5. I liked her face very much 6. that is I found here in a store
7. Vyron plays the role of a writer, who writes 8. but suddenly he also fantasizes as he writes,
these are Meteora 9. and now you're going to ask me, are Meteora
his fantasy? 10. Yes, it is Anixi on some bare hills, which
were filled with illegal constructions then, as they are filled with them now, but they
were in a dramatic state back then, in 1970. 11. Anixi, well, Anixi is in Meteora and Vyron
begins to write, slightly unconventionally to be sure
12. lying face down, let's say, and on a typewriter, a Remington typewriter, or whatever their
name was. 13. Anixi goes to ask for directions, she
is looking for someone; she opens doors and enters in warehouses, closes the doors, she
asks several people from Meteora... 14. people hanging in mid-air [a word play
on the meaning of the word "Meteoros" in Greek which also means 'hanging']
15. and, of course, we get a glimpse of reality, socks and slippers hanging and drying
16. and indeed all of this takes place in Vyron's head
17. who strives to come up with a plot involving this Anixi (the name also means Spring)
18. this petite Anixi. Vyron is very somber 19. [here we see] Vyron in front of Eptapyrgio,
which was a prison [during the dictatorship] 20. he plays karate, but can't do much else
in the 70s, all he can do is play karate in front of Eptapyrgio, that's all he can do...
21. Here, suddenly we see Vyron coming to contact with his leading lady, let's say,
22. in his dreams, but, instead of writing, he begins to paint a picture of her
23. that is, he hasn't coupled with her yet, but has passed to the impression of her image
24. and here 25. through the image...
26. this awesome illusion, 27. we see him set against the daily-life
wretchedness 28. taking the bus, in Aristotelous Square,
with thousands of people, each pilling up against the dirt of the others, etc., and
suddenly as he gets squashed to get on the bus, he turns and sees
29. a vision again, 30. he sees here again on the street and leaves
running; he will not go to work today... 31. he will go to look for Anixi,
32. he will run away from the bus 33. he will leave the bus and the people who
squash him 34. and she (Anixi) will leave the sea, the
beach 35. and now I believe that they will be united
at this point 36. in a different location, of course, and
they will embrace each other 37. the writer and his fantasy.
38. cinema is, well not anymore, now is but a memory, but at the time was my religion,
that is I fell in love with medicine in the course, but I always loved cinema, medicine
I loved in practice, as I became involved in its practice. I can't say that I have renounced
cinema, that is that I have left it behind, I still love it and my words today stand as
proof, that I love the movies. 39. Here we are shooting from inside a cab,
since we didn't have cars back then... 40. the famous, empty cafeterias on the seafront
in the morning 41. here we interpose some stills from the
Vietnam war 42. while here we make our own war.
43. Gakidis, being chased, falls on some billboards etc. Akrivopoulos tries to strangle him
44. and in Tsimiski street, dames passing by looking with amazement, why are these people
doing? The camera was very small, not visible and they were fighting for real, they were
actors who truly felt their roles. 45. and here is the Spanish drama, as if we
did not have a drama of our own and it was the Spanish one then in the 70s
46. and here Yiannis Hatzigogas writes something, writes a slogan, who is in the School of Architecture
and with the Ecologists, he is one of their prominent members, and someone stabs him with
a knife, it is me as I shoot the movie with one hand and stab him with the other, and
then I see the slogan he was writing, Mercedes Benz 220 SL, for that was what we were saying
back in 1980, Mercedes Benz, namely, what we are doing now, Mercedes Benz 220 SL
47.ADVERTISMENTS 48. a war like that in Bosnia, that is, no-one
remains and then my young cousin with a ball, passing by after the war and leaving, and
life goes on... 49. These are also images, and here you seek
the truth, as in cinema. Only truth is more definite here, while in cinema you may seek
it and never find it. My course was a course over time. It begun in 1966 when I entered
the Medical School in Thessaloniki and at the same time, of course, I had prior to this,
when I say "of course" I mean that I feel it as given, that I had forged my relation
to cinema ever since I was a small child. Of course everybody says this, but I am going
to say myself, that when I was 7-8 years old, or as soon as I begun to understand myself,
I used to go to a movie theater, IDEAL, which was in my neighborhood, I grew up near the
Turkish Embassy in Thessaloniki. There was this movie theater -- a winter and open-air
one -- and, as my mother tells me, I used to go there in the morning and it was, like,
playing 2 or 3 movies and I used to watch 2 to 3 times each, I used to take my lunch
with me, and so on, I was very little and, therefore, my course may have begun in '66
but my love for cinema was there since my early childhood. As they all say, of course,
who then became directors. I didn't become one, but this is true. And this was my love
also during high school, and then, while in high school, I had decided to become a director,
when I was, like, in the 10th grade that was my dream. But things were not that easy back
then. I sat the university entrance exams, like all of us, but I made it to Med School.
I succeeded in enrolling in a School that is considered tough to enter and demanding,
a School that, perhaps, will leave you free time to paint, to write poetry, but certainly
not to make films; it's really difficult to do that.
50. The first four years were relaxed, the courses were preclinical and attendance was
not compulsory, one just had to attend labs, which were held in the afternoon.
51. or sometimes in the morning 52. there was time
53. one had to read only towards the time of the exams and then it involved mostly memorizing,
that's how education is in Greece. We would read for some months before the exams, use
mnemonic rules and passed the courses, it wasn't so difficult. The difficult part was
after that, when the clinics begun and you had to be present, you had to witness the
medical act. It was there you had to become responsible, moving from theory to practice,
for medicine is practice and then you had to decide what you would be. I was making
films during the first four years, from '66 to '70 that is. When I became involved in
the clinical practice things changed, and, of course, they changed to the worse, subscribing
to the logic that I had to... I finally got my degree, had to do my rural medical practice,
do my stint at the army as a doctor, choose and study towards my specialization, which
meant that I had to either engage myself or not with this, there were no other opportunities,
to do both (medicine and movies). By this logic, I loved them both, I could go as far
as to say that I loved, I am going to say it, I loved the movies a lot, not that I don't
love medicine that is, I cannot say that radiology doesn't represent me, it represents me and
that is why I hold this office. Otherwise I would not fight to reach this office, if
radiology did not represent me. 54. Tasos Psaras: We had parallel lives with
Miltos Arvanitakis, born in the same neighborhood, raised by parents who were educators, we studied
in parallel and were parts of the same companionships, who begot 3 film makers and one critic, Lambros
Papachronis, who I learned died recently, while the other was Takis Papagiannidis. As
we grew up together, we confided to one another our thoughts and worries and at some point
found out that our mutual dream was to make movies. During that era, just before the coup
d'état, for the offspring of petit-bourgeois families, and indeed with parents who were
educators, to dare be involved in something that transgressed the ordinary, was already
too much, too revolutionary. All the more so for soon came the dictatorship and everything
was buried under fear and torn to shreds by slavery... Now, we had parallel concerns with
Miltos, the path we followed was common, nouvelle vague was our standard. Miltos had Godard
as his paragon, while for myself I would say that, as far as European Cinema was concerned,
I was more impressed by Truffaut. Such was our love for movies that in order to come
to closer contact with what we liked, we did not hesitate to travel to Athens to watch
a film at the Film Library. And all of this, while we stayed true to the spirit of Zanas,
given that we lived in the same street, in the area of Olympou and Agias Sofias in Thessaloniki,
where, aside from the 3 film makers, Miltos, Papagiannidis and myself and Papachronis,
who died, there was also the cinema where Zanas' film club used to hold its screenings.
Then we were together at university, I in veterinary school, Miltos in Medical school,
with our ultimate objective and desire to make movies. Indeed we used to tell him, I
and Papagiannidis, we used to tell him that you (Miltos) being a doctor, you would make
money at some point and it would be easier for you to make films than us. "No, no" Miltos
used to say, "we will make them all together, we will make films together", we used to dream
of short films. 55. Tasos Psaras: indeed Miltos was the first
in our party to own an 8mm camera. 56.
57. 58.
59. 60.
61. 62.
63. 64.
65. 66. There was, therefore, this cinematographic
ambiance, 67. in the mid years of the '60s in our city.
We were very influenced by the French School, 68. the notebooks on cinema
69. these directors, of whom their principal representative was, for me at least, Godard.
It was a revolutionary ambiance 70. that is, we thought of what we did as
a blow against the status quo, we thought that others were
71. grocers of sorts and that we were the film makers.
72. 73. I personally,
74. 75. was operating under this wrong assumption.
76. 77.
78. 79.
80. 81.
82. 83. I entered the Medical School in '66, in
October. I was awarded a 12 thousand drachmas scholarship, that was a lot of money back
then, so I go and buy a camera and start shooting whatever touches me out there...
84. that is, I take the camera and start shooting 85. inside my house, outside and everywhere
86. this material 87. I collect
88. and make a film 89. in October 1967
90. a film based, principally, on editing 91.
92. "Tomes" ["Cuts"] 93. which was appreciated
94. a short film, that is short duration-wise, roughly 3 or 3.5 minutes, based
95. on the editing -- collage of opposites 96. and it was appreciated
97. I was awarded the first prize 98. back then
99. I believe that no other 100. amateur festival
101. was ever held in Thessaloniki 102. this must have been the first
103. that took place 104. ever
105. 106.
107. 108.
109. 110.
111. 112.
113. 114.
115. 116. "Tomes" is the movie with the most 'cuts',
there is no other film with that many cuts. It's a heavily edited film and, obviously,
as you will appreciate, editing on simple 8mm film... there was no negative, as you
now turn the copy to raw etc., no editing gloves or other special devices. We used to
take the positive duplicate and count the stills. We would then calculate how many seconds
to allocate for each still and then we would say that the visual outcome would be thus.
We didn't have MOVIEOLAs and stuff like that, all we had was a projector, and we would roughly
conceptualize the result. We were sort of visionary guys. We took the films, splice
them up, do what we did, and the result was a three and a half minute movie containing
an indefinite number of gluing, a countless number of cuts that is. And if we could manage
to screen it just once, all the better! All we could hope for was to screen it at least
once before an audience. Because we also, and I forgot to tell you this, screened our
films for groups. These groups, we used to go to each others' houses. It was not just
myself, there were other people too. Not that many of them, however. Few in number. And
"TOMES" used to break up at every one of these screenings. While you were editing, you could
either miss the still, or glue them in the reverse order, or you could even miss entire
scenes and create a de facto different film, and as we speak I have two fragments which
were not included in the film you saw. 117. MA: Babis, my friend, what will we watch
from your films today? 118. MK: I would rather watch "Zargeas and
Artemisia". Miltos, you know who illustrated this poster? M.A. -- No Babis, I don't', but
it looks very nice. MK: It was illustrated by Nikos Papazoglou. M.A.- Say what? I didn't
know that he possesed so many other talents, apart from his musical ones. MK: It shows
Eva, an apple and Adam 119. Adam, I didn't see Adam anywhere, Babis
120. Ah, I see the sea, a sea that reminds me of Le Mepris (film).
121. M.A.- With Fritz Land and Godard. M.K.-- Yes.
122. MK: Miltos was the cameraman, he had more dexterity, I could not manage it
123. MA: I met Babis at a meeting where we 124. used to screen our films
125. On May 1st, 1966, at the bus terminal of Thessaloniki, my mother helped me on the
bus with a suitcase, as I began my journey to Athens, and I say my mother, since my father,
resentful from my decision had given me 1000 Drachmas and had told me that when this money
runs out and I had seen Athens I should not take offence or have any reservations about
coming back and continuing my studies. This was the harshest thing that anyone had told
me until then and I made a promise to myself that I will not go back and that, indeed,
I will succeed and do what I always wanted to do. This decision of mine also affected
some other kids, to Tasos Psaras say, with whom we lived in the same neighborhood. And,
each time I returned to Thessaloniki for the holidays and met with them again, they always
surprised me. One such surprise was the case of Miltos Arvanitakis, for I witnessed them,
one-by-one to become involved in filmmaking themselves. And I remember some summers with
Miltos, these humid Thessaloniki summers, in his living room, with all the doors shut
tight, not to wake up his parents, while he was screening some 8mm films to me
126. influenced at the time by that era's avant-garde
127. 128..
129. 130. And here we see Andres and some other
kids, Papachronis had written this article back then "The aesthetic of Nescafe", and
we put a satchel of nescafe 131. and Papanoutsos' work "Aesthetics" and
we said, here it is the Nescafe aesthetics 132. and, of course, he talks and talks some
more and gets slapped in the face, he talks once more and gets slapped again and at some
point he stops talking. 133. For a young person in the '60s to become
involved in filmmaking and, indeed, if he came from a city away from Athens was very
strenuous and hard, it was a life decision, I believe. That is, you couldn't just say...
"I'm going to Athens to do my thing", because, let us not forget, transportation was not
that easy and comfortable as it is now; but also, principally, employment opportunities
were not such that could just drop your studies and go to Athens, a journey to the unknown.
You must have firmly set your mind on this. It was a decision for life to become involved
in these things and from this stand point I, since I was 14, had taken this decision,
that is I lived for this thing, when would the time come for me to leave and to become
involved in this and I never thought of contingency plans, I never felt insecure about my decision
and never looked elsewhere to find what I wanted to do with my life, what direction
to follow. Tasos. I believe it's a different thing to drop out of university as soon as
you enter it, without even beginning your studies, and that's different to what Tasos
did, who dropped out of university in his 3rd or 4th year, close to his final one and
his degree. And this was a harder yet more substantial decision. Now in Miltos' case,
he was the son... I believe that the family environment might have played a role, he was
the son of a headmaster and with a direction more proactive to life and studies, for we
chase after will-o'-the-wisps in our line of work. I believe that he never took this
decision, or perhaps this did not occupy him more than his amateur involvement with filmmaking.
134. T.Psaras: I believe that if Miltos Arvanitakis did cinema, he would be today... he would
have articulated his own vocabulary. I watch the works of Greek directors, also in the
field of short films. Of course, there are the well-known films, which we all know, but
I don't think any other colleague has followed the road that Miltos Arvanitakis could have
treaded. Thus I believe that it's a loss for Greek filmmaking that Miltos Arvanitakis did
not make cinema and, indeed, the cinema that only he know how to make.
135. 136.
137. 138.
139. T.Psaras: Miltos was the first to shoot a composed movie at 16mm
140. I shot this in '68 in October 141. with Konis Pyrpasopoulos, an actor that
was fired from
the State Theater and immigrated to Australia, 142. Roula Pateraki was also starring, she
had just graduated from Haratsaris' School, she was a young actress
143. I make this film, which I intended to submit at the Festival, but didn't at the
end 144.
145. 146.
147. 148.
149. 150.
151. 152.
153. 154.
155, 156.
157. 158. our soul was depreciated and it's late
to buy anything 159. everything is so expensive
160. 161.
162. 163.
164. What will we eat today? 165. Eating is a major problem
166. What will you have, please? 167. A crème royal
168. I am sorry, we have run out 169. would you, perhaps, want an ice-cream
or profiterole? -- Oh, what a shame, I really would like some crème royal.
170. I shot it on 16mm, firstly, because I believed at the time that I should try something
fit for a bigger screen; to screen it for more people to see that is. Because a bigger
screen meant more people, a larger theater: bigger screen, more seats, more people, in
one screening. That would have been the Festival, which was held at time. And, therefore, this
was one thing: namely that I thought that I had, too soon, to test my skills and try
my hand. When I say too soon, I mean that I was 20, 21 at the time, a first or second
year student of medicine. I was convinced, that is, that I could produce something for
the public to see and to do this now rather than later. And the second reason was that
my other friends, with whom we begun together, had already tried their hand at this,
171. and they were even more ambitious; that's why I did it.
172. There were no difficulties in the film's making, things were kept simple, perhaps that's
why it wasn't done properly, I didn't use professional...
173. photographers... that was my mistake 174. I used professional actors, but
175. Konis Pyrpasopoulos was a very dramatic actor
176. and, perhaps, I was too young to direct him, I knew nothing about actor directing,
since I moved on to fiction too suddenly, everything I had been directing for a year,
since '67, were documentaries and suddenly I move on to direct fiction. Of course, I
did some tests, style exercises and such, but I moved on to fiction with real actors,
while the others (those who played in my previous works) were friends and I now I had professional
actors, such as Konis, who was from the State Theatrical Company. I, therefore, had a problem
with the directing of the actors and their performances and this is evident in the movie,
there is a tendency for over-dramatization. My other problem was technique, and when I
say technique I mean photography. The movie is uneven, there are some good shots, there
are some bad shots, and by that, I mean overexposed shots. At some points film development leaves
a lot to be desired, since it was done in Athens, it was a duplicate again, it was not
a negative. We were lacking the means to make a negative, to re-edit it; we transferred
everything directly to the positive, did the editing, inserted the audio and then recorded
it. Hence it suffered from such problems. That is, the final copy did not satisfy me,
I am not sure if I should have submitted it to the Festival, at that age and in those
circumstances, I did not like it. I made it for the Festival, but when I saw it, I backed
off. 177.
178. 179.
180. 181.
182. 183.
184. 185.
186. 187.
188. 189.
190. 191.
192.