How (not) to organise a film festival on Samos

the first Summer Island Movie Festival - Samos, July 2012

by Ruard Wallis de Vries

(this is an extended version of an article published in the Dutch magazine Lychnari, March 2013)

A warm Greek summer night on Samos. About a hundred people are seated together on an intimate square, between a school building, a nursery and the milky-white church of Agios Panteleimonas. After two failed attempts, the DVD of director Alex McCall appears to be working after all. Thank heavens for that - McCall himself has come over to Samos especially for this occasion, to show his documentary called The Boy David Story, for which he's won a BAFTA[1] award.

The projector hums. The sound from the speakers is excellent. And the documentary comes out beautifully on the church wall. Yes, the church wall. Our festival couldn't have wished for a better, a Greeker movie screen than the side wall of the church dedicated to Saint Panteleimon.

But then it happens. From afar, we see them approaching the church. Three elderly women, dressed in black. The type of eternal widows who are always rummaging around churches and chapels. Without blinking an eye, totally oblivious to their cinematic surroundings, they open the church door, right next to the projection on the wall, and go inside.

My movie friends and I exchange worried glances. Antonis whispers: "Have you talked to the Papás?"

Nobody has talked to the Papás. Nobody thought it necessary to awaken dormant priests. But now that these three black widows have surfaced, now the festival is suddenly hanging by a thread. On its very opening night!

Not much later, the three widows leave the church again. They look around. On the church wall, there's a scene being shown of a surgery on a Peruvian boy born with a disfigured face. This fascinates the widows. There are still plenty of plastic chairs at hand - Antonis and Vassiliki are already lifting them from the stack. Gratefully, the widows accept a seat. Takis appears with three bottles of mineral water.
The widows watch the entire documentary. On the next night, there are eight of them.

The story of the Summer Island Movie Festival, SIMF in short, starts in September 2011. I spend that month in my house on Samos, in the village of Ano-Vathy. The son of my very old neighbour suddenly makes me an offer to buy his father's house. All of a sudden I own two adjacent houses, with a fairly large piece of land right in front of it. Two pieces of terrace actually, bordered by a white wall of 7 by 3 meters.

After the sale I view my property from above. An irresistible thought comes up in my mind: what if we put fifty seats on that terrace in summer, and use the white wall as a cinema screen?

The next day I call film director Eirini Vachlioti. I know her since November 2004, when I met her on Samos, two days after the murder of Theo van Gogh. Shell-shocked, I sat on a terrace reading the newspaper. A young woman three seats further caught my eye. She asked me if I was alright.

"No, I'm not. Theo van Gogh was murdered. A Dutch film director."

Her eyes widened, "I've heard of him. I'm also a film director."

Eirini Vachlioti

That was, to say it cinematographically, the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Eirini comes from a family that occupies an important place in Greek cinema - her aunt Deni was a famous costume designer, one of the nominees for an Oscar in 1961 for the immortal "Never on Sunday". Eirini's father was a professor who taught cinema, her mother was an actress. And why was Eirini on Samos, on that day I met her? She was there to promote her first short film Skipper Straad, based on a poem by Nikos Kavvadiás, which she had written and directed. She had just won the first prize for fiction, documentary or animated picture film at the International Film Festival of Thessaloniki, and would go on to win other prestigious prizes in months to come.

When I get her on the phone, I report Eirini about my two houses, my extended terrace and my white wall. She doesn't need more encouragement - at that instant, then and there, the idea for a film festival is born. Right away, she comes up with half a dozen ideas and names. "Do you know Alex McCall? A BAFTA winner. I've worked with him in Peru. Alex would definitely love to come to Greece."

Alex McCall

My Samiot acquaintances try to talk me out of the film festival. "Having a therinó[2] means having a small company. Your houses are in the middle of a residential neighbourhood - all it takes is one complaining granny and your plan will fall to pieces. You'll definitely need a noise permit. Plus as soon as you'll start selling drinks, you'll have the town hall on your back. How many toilets do you have? How many square meters of kitchen space? And what about the tiles on the wall, do they reach a height of 1.4 meters? "

The Greek winter of 2011/2012 is a very cold one. Hard to keep the house warm with just an old stove. Luckily, the Samos Film Club is open every Friday and Saturday. In the film cafe, housed in a very angelopoulesque[3] building, I meet like-minded souls. Not before too long I open up to them about my festival plans, telling them how the municipal services told me that, apart from the noise permit and kitchen tiles, my little plan also requires health certificates, a company insurance and tax forms. Takis Chatzimichail, one of the Film Club members, hears me out and says what I secretly hoped for: "We can help you out. We have a place, we have a projector and speakers. We remember Eirini's visit. Are you good friends with her?"

Yes, by now Eirini and I are very good friends. I pass through Athens a few times, and there we piece together a programme. As it is too late to come up with one central theme, we base the programme on one criterion: who wants to show his or her film on Samos? Eirini contacts Alex McCall, and he graciously accepts. One of Irini's friends, Rena Chrysocheri, works as a social anthropologist in Alexandria. The well-known Greek film maker Yorgos Avgeropoulos has used her research on the Greek community in Alexandria to make a 55-minute documentary for Al Jazeera. Rena is happy to come to Samos as well, bringing with her the first Greek copy of Egypt, the Other Homeland.

A still from 'Milk' by Kostas Fragoulis

While Eirini is talking to her friends about the festival, things are moving on Samos as well. Through the Film Club, I find a group of young Samiot short film directors who join in with enthusiasm. Both Manos Arvanitakis and Kostas Fragoulis offer 3 of their recent short films. The Samos-based institute of marine conservation Archipelagos agrees to show The End of the Line, a documentary with a very Greek theme: overfishing.

By now I am trying to mobilize everyone I know. Alessia Ricci, a good friend from Rome who's been a great supporter of the festival since its humble origins, contacts two Italian movie directors who'd love to come over. They are full of good will but somewhat erratic in answering e-mails. I keep an evening open for them, but I also keep a stack of Melina Merkouri DVDs nearby, by way of Plan B - after all, this is a Greek summer festival, and we wouldn't want more documentaries and movies about the crisis; we've been bombarded with them all year round.

The DVDs were brought in by Vassiliki Vayenou, another good friend, who works as a curator in Berlin. When I mail her about the festival, she immediately tells me how much she wants to help out. It's an offer I will take up right away - in fact, she will end up saving the festival on more than one occasion. The most memorable rescue might just be convincing a stubborn festival organizer to go to the hospital with a foot that's swelling up to elephantine proportions, barely two days before the festival is about to start.

"Samos International"...

While the "Samos International Movie Festival" takes shape, I leave the island for a break in the Netherlands. There, a troubled Takis calls me: "Bad news, file. Yesterday we received a visit from a director who also organizes a film festival. He calls it "Samos International Film Festival ", and does not want anyone else to use the words "Samos"and "International". And he's got his festival firmly and officially registered."

Bad news indeed. Because meanwhile we have a beautiful logo for SIMF2012 (depicted here), designed by my friends Evert Albers and Judith Besselink. There is also a gem of a SIMF website, made by my friend Han Zuidweg. All this on a voluntary basis. We cannot get rid of the name SIMF anymore.

Within five minutes I call Takis: "What if we replace "Samos International" by "Summer Island"?"

I can hear him smile.

"... became "Summer Island"

the tip jar

Gradually the programme is nearing completion. The Samos Film Club is by now fully involved in the preparations. Enthusiasm reigns, one good suggestion follows another. We decide that entry will be free for all - especially since some of the foreign films have no Greek subtitles. And you don't want to pay for a movie that you cannot follow, especially not in your own country. Fair point. As a compromise solution, one of the Film Club members comes up with a beauty of a tip jar - made by his wife.

Two weeks before the festival, we do a test run. The speakers, projector and DVD player are all working fine. My only concern left is the movie screen, which I don't see anywhere. Until I spot the slide screen of about 1,5 by 1,5 meters, the kind my grandfather used in his living-room when he showed us his pictures from a Yugoslavian holiday.

Then, Poseidon unleashes a strong sea breeze across the square. The slide screen tumbles down, and we all fall silent. Then we turn the projector 90 degrees and aim at the snow-white wall of the Agios Panteleimonas church. Suddenly we have a beautiful projection of four by three meters.

Now that that's settled, the actual film club meeting starts. A great chunk of it is spent on how to best receive the guests from Athens and abroad. Members offer houses, rooms, lunches, rides to and from the airport... As for the lunch, a lively discussion erupts what dishes to offer the directors, and in particular how to best prepare barbouni.

"The Meeting" by Emanuele Flangini

In the run-up to the festival, everything accelerates: it turns out that the two Italian directors, which I had more or less written off, are on their way to Athens. By car. They are already in Bulgaria, and plan to drive to Turkey, to take the ferry to Samos from there. Not a good plan - they transport a lot of technical equipment, and it will take the customs forever to inspect that. "Turn right, turn right!", I shout into my phone. "To Athens, Atena!" Eventually, Emanuele Flangini and Marco Neri will make it on time, presenting their own works, The Meeting and Roma Residence.
Alessia Ricci will join them on Samos, and will assist both directors in translating their contributions into English, including a workshop on how to make a shortfilm.

Mousiki Parea Samou

Suddenly, there's a music programme. Three, four groups from Samos are happy to participate. Takis brings in his Mousiki Parea Samou, and Giorgos Koumaradios seems to know everyone in the Samos music business. Both Takis and Giorgos and are eager to bring in their own musical talents as well. For the opening night, we have the honour to host a band of old Samiot rockers, who reunited especially for the occasion. A few days before the event, the singer calls me up. He sounds defeated. It turns out that during carpentry work, the bass player has seriously injured his index finger. At the very last instance, Giorgos traces down a rock band from Karlovasi, on the other side of the island, called Mellon T'Algeina. They save the first night with a fantastic set.

Mellon T'Algeina

Perhaps the greatest pleasure was inviting my friends over from Brussels, with whom I play in the on-and-off band PLOK, to come to Samos to give a concert. The band had been on ice for a while, basically due to my decision to take a sabbatical and leave the Brussels bureaucracy for a while. But on Samos, "Philip, Luis, Otis and Karen" (PLOK) reunite for one concert and an innumerable amount of jam sessions.

Meanwhile, the organizers are covering the town with a fresh daily supply of festival posters. Stelios, President of the Samos Bicycle Club, offers half a dozen of bikes for festival visitors - we stall them at the central square of Samos Town, offering a free escorted ride to the venue, along the seaside boulevard. At this point, Katerina Giannoula comes charging in. She had already given me a thousand and one little tips about who to call and where to go, and while we finish teapot after teapot in the Samos Hotel, she mentions that the festival should have masterclasses as well. In fact, she could do one on dance theatre, taking a biomatic approach. Later, she arranges two rooms at the Samos Hotel for free, to host our movie director guests. And now, with the festival about to begin, she manages to mobilize the group of young dancers she directed a few months earlier for the dance theatre performance The Arrival. It would be next to impossible to find a more suitable opening of the festival. The young dancers perform for free, thrilled that they are being watched by the newly arrived guests Rena Chrysocheri, Eirini Vachlioti and Alex McCall, and by a crowd that packs the Film Club Theatre.

The Arrival

Nine crazy days of 'Festivalitis' follow, full of technical near-breakdowns, last minute solutions, beautiful cinema, relentless heat, spontaneous outbursts of music and singing, good audience turnouts every night, homemade snacks, love dramas on and behind the screen... On the last day, Takis calls up a garage company to transport a half-forgotten grand piano from a dusty corner of the governor's office. "You have to be a little crazy to do this", Takis admits, and while we are discussing the merits of being a little crazy, the truck driver / garage owner sweats bullets trying to get this job done without lasting damage. We proceed at funeral speed through Samos Town, drawing a lot of attention from the shopping crowds, with the grand piano looking all shiny and majestic on the open truck. That evening, pianist Giorgos Koumaradios and accordeonist Stavros Michalopoulos play a beautiful recital dedicated to film music, accompanied by images put together by Nikos Tsoulos - yet another friend who tirelessy promotes the festival through his Samosbook. Over two hundred people have come to listen and enjoy.

Practically every festival day starts with a two-hour 'masterclass'. Volunteers abound: art therapist Marianne Nielsen takes on the theme of personal relations to a film, and Eirini Vachlioti leads a group of Samiots through a session of acting and improvisation. Eirini also asks Rena Chrysocheri and Alex McCall to do masterclasses on their work.

On the third night of the festival, Eirini introduces and shows the short film "Skipper Straad", which she made in 2003, and which she had come to show on Samos in 2004, when I first met her. That day, after I'd told her about the brutal murder of Theo van Gogh, she told me that she would show her movie at the Film Club the next day, and she invited me to come and see it. I had to decline - my ticket to Amsterdam was booked for the next day. But that same evening, there was a first showing of "Skipper Straad" in Karlovasi, on the other end of Samos. Eirini herself could not be present at that showing, but I promised I would go and see it. And so I did. I took a taxi and ended up watching a series of intriguing Greek short films, with Eirini's work as the absolute highlight. I remember walking out of the cinema, all dazed and spellbound as if I was still in her movie, and sms-ing her: "it is a poem". Eight years later, at SIMF 2012, I am watching that poem again - in Eirini's company this time.

By then, Alex McCall is already back in Scotland. He has also enjoyed the festival - delivering a fantastic masterclass, undaunted by the heatwave, immaculate in his Peter Ustinov-like suit. In parting, he gives us the greatest compliment: "Keep going. You have the right dose of madness."