New film follows the transformation of the Agora from democracy to the market, ELEFTHEROTYPIA (in English)
Via: New film follows the transformation of the Agora from democracy to the market, ELEFTHEROTYPIA
New film follows the transformation of the Agora from democracy to the market
15.10.2014
Entitled Agorá, the 90-minute film was four years in the making
A hard-hitting documentary about the Greek crisis will have its world premiere on November 9 at the upcoming Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival (CPH:DOX), which runs from 6–16 November 2014.
Entitled Agorá, the 90-minute film is by award-winning Greek journalist and filmmaker Yorgos Avgeropoulos, who created the successful Exandas documentary series that ran on ERT public television until the station’s closure by the coalition government in June 2013.
The product of four years of research and production, Agorá records the unfolding of the crisis from its early stage, while tracing its impact on the lives of simple people from all social classes whom Avgeropoulos observes over time. He witnesses popular protests in the streets, the development of solidarity movements as well as the rise of fascism, while at the same time he seeks answers from his country’s most significant political personalities, from insiders, analysts and key decision makers from the international political scene.
The film derives its name from the Agora (Αγορά), the central space in ancient Greece city-states that served as a gathering place, assembly for active citizens, and the focus for political, economical, athletic, artistic and spiritual life.
“It was the heart of democracy. In modern Greece, the word Agora has lost its initial sense and it has come to denote solely the place and act of commercial transactions. It is a dominant word in the reality experienced today by Greeks, as the country goes through an economical vortex that devours human lives in its path,” the film’s description says.
“Greece, a symbol for the European civilisation because of its ancient heritage, is experiencing conditions in postwar history that no European thought would face again. Homeless people, soup kitchens, unemployment, poverty, an unsettled social situation, violent conflicts and the rise of the extreme-right. The dream of prosperity has turned into a nightmare and the political scene of the last four decades is crumbling.”
The film is produced by Small Planet (Greece) and co-produced by Germany’s WDR (Westdeutscher Rundfunk) and Al Jazeera Arabic. The film’s official website will be online on 23 October 2014 at www.agorathedoc.com.
