The future of Greece lies in its youth, and unity is the answer, Greek director Constantina Vulgaris, 34, told ANSAmed at the ongoing MedFilm Festival in the Italian capital. ”We can make it if we remain united, because Greece will only be able to rise up again thanks to its youth”, Vulgaris, who is here representing her second feature, titled A.C.A.B. (All Cats Are Brilliant), told ANSAmed in an interview.
”It is up to us to do something, every day, to improve the situation. We continue on the strength of our ideas”. Like her 30-something protagonist Elektra, Vulgaris is a political activist living in the center of Athens. ”I wanted to make this film because I believe in political activism”, she explained.
A.C.A.B. missed out on public financing due to the crisis, and was shot at a low budget with no compensation for the cast, some of whom are name actors and others are newcomers. ”Both my parents were in the Greek Communist Youth and were arrested under the dictatorship. My father also made political films”, Vulgaris recounted.
In her movie, Elektra is in love with an anarchist, Manousos, who is in jail under current Greek anti-terrorism legislation. This is why not everyone welcomed her film at home, the director says.
”They thought the movie exalts and supports anarchism”, said Vulgaris, adding that the crisis has caused deep social change in Greece.
”Our society has gone through a metamorphosis. Many turned conservative out of fear. The government did nothing to prevent violent right-wing extremism, which fielded a party, Golden Dawn, and it got a lot votes”. A graduate of the Stavrakos Film School in Athens, Vulgaris directed the shorts Youpi (1999) and Sleepy Light (2001), making her feature debut in 2007 with Sentimental Waltz. Her favorite Italian filmmakers, she says, are Nanni Moretti and the Taviani brothers, and especially their film Caesar Must Die. The crisis may be driving film into the ground, but Vulgaris is keeping her eyes on the prize.
”I’m used to the highs and lows of this job, which has yet to provide me with a living wage. But I much prefer my situation to that of people who had a fixed income before the crisis, and now no longer have it”, said the director, who wears a pin picturing the Kremlin’s Red Square.
(source: ANSA)
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