“Voulolimna” / screenings, discussion, concert

On Wednesday 12 April the film “Voulolimna” (2022, 18′) by Olga Evaggelidou, Nefeli Papaioannou and Irene Ragusini and the interview with Professor Michalis Dretakis / Biologist Ornithologist at the University of Crete will be screened at KET. A discussion and concert will follow.

Programme:

• Screening of the short film “Voulolimna” (2022, 18′) by Olga Evangelidou, Nefeli Papaioannou and Irene Ragusini (in Greek, with English subtitles)

• Screening of an interview with biologist and ornithologist Michalis Dretakis (University of Crete). (15′, in Greek, without subtitles)

• Discussion with the filmmakers and the audience.

• Concert of the group Trendelina with polyphonic songs from Epirus that tell the stories of women where nature becomes an ally in their pains and joys.

Voulolimna (18′, with English subtitles)

The short documentary “Voulolimna” observes life around the lakes of Kournas and Agia in the prefecture of Chania, in which the fictional element intrudes.

“Voula and Voulolimna and I am a ghost of the lake” said the fairy, frightened, and immediately the area was flooded with water and the whole village was submerged. The guilty stories of fresh water do not float but sink and the unseen creatures that live there try to keep them afloat. If you stand in silence and give it time, if you look closely and listen, the secrets of the lake are revealed.

Director’s note:

“Every myth has its truth. If we observe it more closely, we can see its meaning and its symbolic value in the reality we live in. Science, combined with the mythical aspect of life, helps us to understand the world around us. The more we take a self-centered approach to the place we live in, the more it will become diseased, losing its truth until it disappears on the altar of “development”. The natural flow of wildlife is being disrupted, throwing into the lake goldfish, American turtles, buffleheads, domestic ducks, tourists with sunscreens, plastic bicycles, increasingly disregarding the cormorants, herons, mallards, and native species that are becoming increasingly scarce. Women and nature – without identifying these entities – are being reined in and exploited in the wider system of life in which we exist and operate. The abuse of women and the approach of women as erotic and fertile beings without self-determination and will is paralleled by the exploitation of nature and all the living beings that make it up. The pollution of water, the digging up of the land for property purposes, the latent tourism, our expansionist tendency over things, the lack of respect for the unseen creatures that inhabit the entire planet are all framed by the myth of a woman whose beauty becomes a curse and who falls victim to rape by her own father and submerges an entire village, turning herself into a lake. An act of sacrifice and redemption.

When we stop owning what shines, when we respect diversity and give it space, then perhaps this planet will be saved from darkness. May our footsteps be light, as short as our passage on Earth.”

Credits:

Script & Research: Olga Evangelidou, Nefeli Papaioannou, Irene Ragusini

Direction & direction of photography: Nefeli Papaioannou

Assistant director & camera assistant: George Gounezos

Costume: Olga Evangelidou, Irene Ragusini

Fairy: Irene Ragusini

Music recording: Dimitris Barnias

Music supervision: Rafael Troulakis

Musicians: Dimitris Athanasopoulos (flute, voice), Kyveli Koukoudaki (stamna), Rafael Troulakis (lute, voice), Anna Hatzidaki (bendir), Uly Odysseas Whelan (violin, voice)

Editing: Nefeli Papaioannou

Color: Babis Petridis

Sound design: Christos Lupis, Nefeli Papaioannou

Audio mixing: Christos Lupis

Curator: Eleni Riga

Funding: Cultural programme “Anoihta Pania 2022” of the Municipality of Chania

Thanks for the valuable participation and help: Michalis Drettakis, Eleni Papadaki, Nikos Samaritakis, Despina Stavroulaki, Richard Valentine Aristidis Gibson, Danae Filippa, Taverna Athiti and Zacharenia, Antonis Habas, Hassan

Note from the Trendelina:

The polyphonic Epirotic song was born, sung and is still sung in the regions of southern Albania and the borderland of Epirus and is an old and living tradition of the people there. They sing of foreignness, love, death, nature, the joys and pains of life, collectively, in the particular form of the continental pentatonic. We, as a group, coming from different paths and for different reasons, came to Exarchia to get to know this primordial sound, to sing the sorrows and joys of our time, as they are sung in Epirus. We approach the genre on the basis of solidarity and collectivity, which are integral elements of the polyphonic tradition.