Thessaloniki

The Greek documentary film ‘Stavroula’ (2011) screened at the 14th Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival. 21 year-old filmmaker Ira Dika’s debut proves a delightfully insightful and soulful film about an elderly Greek woman, Stavroula, seen through the eyes of the filmmaker herself, Ira, a young woman. In the film, Stavroula says to Ira: “Everything flows and nothing stays still... everything changes and nothing remains the same,” words that seem to echo from ancient Platonic Greece being uttered in the field of time by 86 year-old Stavroula who straddles the eternal as the end of her life approaches. The film takes place during one day in Stavroula’s routine life as she eats, bathes and reminisces about her past. It is a work of great depth coming from the exceptionally promising young filmmaker Ira Dika.

-written by Vanessa McMahon

During the press conference at TDF, Ira introduced herself, saying:

IRA: “I’m 21 and it was my first film so I’m very glad to be here. The film is about an old lady. I knew her so I went to her house and I was watching her and then I was filming her and it was nice because she is very sweet…I had to shoot Stavroula naked taking a the shower and I liked this moment. But this is not a film about Stavroula, the lady I know, it’s a film about the old ladies and when we see an old lady taking a shower and having problems and she cant do it alone I think all the time, ‘someday maybe I will become like her’.”

Yorgos Savoglou, who made the montage and sound of the film said this:

YORGOS: “Stavroula talks about the feeling of getting old and losing memories and forgetting sometimes the name of your son, getting old and how you see people who are getting old. She sees other old people as old but not herself as old but she realizes something during that time. When you point your lens on someone you see them differently. She is like a baby sometimes but she doesn't have all the benefits of a baby. A baby we take care of and we play with it but with the old we never do. I did the sound bit sometimes we left them alone. We have some scenes of her dressing up after her bath and some personal moments. We wanted to observe but not talk with her. We never asked her things we just let her talk…When you are a filmmaker you see life in a different way through different eyes and I think as an artist you have to live a different life while you live your own. And this is to be an artist is to live a double life.”

Director Ira Dika