In the context of the two day conference (April 2-3, 2004) titled Negotiations for War: Reenactment of War in Greek Cinema, held at the amphitheatre “Yannos Kranidiotis” of the Hellenic Ministry of Foreign Affairs, participants had the opportunity to view a carefully selected series of images from war films and historical documentaries in the premier showing of the documentary by Giannis Koutsomitis titled War at 24 frames. The depicted images, on the one hand the product of risky efforts by cinematographers to capture authentic war footage (as is the case with the documentary Ellinisti Kypros by Nikos Koundouros which depicts the invasion of the Turkish troops in Cyprus, images which are tragically timely due to the then developments on the island) while on the other images that have been staged in an effort to reproduce military operations, set the prescient question, revealing thus the goals of the conference itself. As the director of the Service of Diplomatic and Historical Archives Mrs. Photini Tomai-Constantopoulou noted, “we have thus two meanings to contemplate: the cinema, the cinematographic image as historical testimony, a pool from where one can draw information for the political, social and cultural history of a nation, as well as war and its reproduction” setting thus the context of discussion.
The two-day academic conference, an annual practice at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, since this conference constitutes the fourth successive gathering in the broader context of the annual meetings under the heading "The Testimony of the Cinematographic Image", set poignant questions of historical, political and aesthetic relevance. A multitude of distinguished academicians, researchers and artists were called upon to present their views on these questions. The fundamental preoccupation of the conference was expressed by Ambassador Elias Klis, First Secretary General of the Ministry when he noted: “We should not forget that war, in its various shapes and forms, has been an inherent part of contemporary and modern Greek history, from the creation of the Greek state, until the fratricidal civil war which followed the end of World War II. For over 120 years, Greeks fought on a regular basis, for their independence, the incorporation of liberated lands, the territorial integrity, and the political power. In this historical context it is of particular importance to discuss the specific events that Greek cinema has chosen to reproduce, at which moment in time, with what methods, for what reasons and for which goals.”
Revolving around the concept of the reenactment of war in cinema, the presentation of Ambassador at large, Mr. Byron Theodoropoulos, stressed the difficulties for the objective presentation of the facts when it comes to such a dramatic phenomenon such as war, since it is prone to propagandist exploitation and touches on the issue of the biased presentation of history even when it comes to the, theoretically trustworthy, recording of the facts as depicted in newsreels. The latter, even though the authorized directorates screen them, still constitute a deposit to our historical memory as Mr. Thodoros Adamopoulos, director of the Film Library of Greece noted. Mr. Lakis Papastathis, director and writer, whose superb documentary "Soldiers of War" from his series "In Search of the Lost Image" was presented at the conference, also consented to this view.
Additional “food for thought” was presented by film historian Stathis Valoukos, who presented the frequency and the subjects through which war has preoccupied global cinema. The epical presentation of the clashes in Greek military history with an emphasis on propaganda and the invigoration of national moral were analyzed by political scientist Mrs. Marietta Provata “Drafted Fine Arts: the Greek Cinema in the Alter of Propaganda”, historian George Andritsos “Enactments of Occupation and Resistance in the Greek Movies 1945 – 1966” and Gregory Theothoridis “The Meaning of the Continuous National Struggle in the Reenactments of “Slavic conspiracy” in the War Movies Filmed during the Military Regime of the Colonels”. From the field of film history, Maria Paradisi presented her paper titled “History, Drama and Show: the Case of Lieutenant Natasha” while Christos Dermetzopoulos, a cultural sociologist, presented his paper titled “The Greek Movies for the Revolution of 1821”.
The more satiric side of the portrayal of the war footage, which aimed at the demystification of the armed forces as the formative decision maker in the political realm was analyzed by Mrs. Maria Stasinopoulou, historian of the University of Vienna, in her presentation “Satirical and Comical Approaches to War in Greek Cinema”, the musicologist Nikos Poulakis in his paper "Loafing and Camouflage: Music in the Satirical New Greek Cinema” and political communications expert Mr. Vasillis Vamvakas, “Anti-War Satire: the Impossible of Naiveté”. Andreas Pagoulatos, a film theorist, made reference to the works of Takis Kanellopoulos in his presentation “The War in the Sky: The Cinematographic World of Takis Kanellopoulos”, as well as cinematographic historian Dimitris Kalantidis in his paper titled “Sky Outing: The poetic movies of Takis Kanellopoulos about the war”. Political scientist, Panagis Panagiotopoulos, tackled the issue of war through the historical terminologies in his presentation “Social Violence, Political Conflict, and Cinematographic Settlement” while Oded Varon Vassar commented with sentimentalism one of the most tragic, for Greece, aspects of the war in her presentation “Cinematographic Testimonies of the Genocide of the Jews”.
Finally, the literary historian, Giannis Papatheodorou and historian Polymeris Voglis analyzed perspectives of the reenactments of the Greek Civil War in “The Return of the Germans: Black and White Nightmares and the Ideology of Consensus During the Period of the Civil War” and “From Muzzles to the Camera: the Civil War in Greek Cinema”, respectively. Paris Gounaridis, an expert on Byzantium, commented on the historical and cultural aspects of one of the most important films of the last few years by Fotos Lambrinos titled “A Doubtful Civil War: The War between the Two Andronikos and their Representation at the Doxombous”.
The papers presented in the context of the conference will soon be published in a volume, a practice that was followed by previous conferences of the Cinematographic Archive.
February 17, 2011