Sotiris Goritsas is one of those directors who insists on seeing the comic side of social life and everyday life, even when it looks as dark as the Greek version of the last 10-12 years. His relatively few films (eight in three and a half decades) manage to describe the virtues, pathologies, strengths and weaknesses of the people who inhabit this place, and at the same time tell some of the stories that remain unforgettable thanks to their heroes. But after a decade of crisis, how do you choose the materials you use below?

“Each of us experienced the crisis years in different ways. Personally, I initially saw this as a huge opportunity for self-awareness, an opportunity to get rid of the burden that brought us to the crisis. I was refused. Instead, I saw our society retreat to the worst traditions, to stupid “pride” that “someone else, and not us, is to blame for the fact that we suffer”, and therefore we continue our bliss undaunted. As you’d expect, you’ll tell me, for anyone who’s read a bit of history. But at least in art you have the opportunity to rewrite history the way it could have turned out, and not the way it actually happened,” the Greek director tells us.

In his new movie Where We Live, which opens next Thursday, he uses as a starting point the novel of the same name by Christos Kythreotis, whose hero is precisely the “man of crisis”, a 35-year-old old lawyer who is struggling to survive Strange Day. What drew him to this particular story? “Firstly, exactly what the current generation of 35-40-year-olds is talking about. Secondly, he leads him not through a marginal hero, but through someone who participates in everyday social life, forced to struggle with his work, his friends, his relationships, his country or leaving it, and, above all, the father of the family, that’s where I believe everything starts. Thirdly, that the look of Christ Kitreotis is not the look of an “indignant” one who comes to “reprove” everyone else, but at the same time he looks at his own hump. Fourthly, that it is done with humor and even with self-abasement. And fifthly, that after the public hospitals, I was finally able to find myself in another field that had always interested me, namely the courts and the functioning of the Greek justice system.”

As we have said, Goritsas certainly prefers to highlight the more comical aspects of life – and literature, for that matter – with his scripts, while at the same time giving Antonis, who is beautifully interpreted by Prometheus Aliferopoulos, a more dynamic role than the one which he has in the book. There is a pervasive feeling in this that the protagonist is watching his own life pass before him, not daring to act; on the contrary, on the big screen, it is he who mainly determines the development of events. “This happens for the simple reason that literature has a different weapon than cinema. For example, the hero can just watch and comment, and that’s fun. But in the cinema that interests me, the hero cannot in any way be a “passive observer” of life, that is, not “suffer”. Besides, I would never let someone else play such a glamorous role. I prefer to keep it to myself as much as possible.”

In art, you have the opportunity to rewrite history in the way it could have unfolded, rather than the way it actually unfolded.

Among other things, Antonis’s dichotomy with his father (Stelios Mainas) and the complex relationship between them play a central role in the narrative, which unfolds in more detail in the second part of the film. There, Antonis will have to come face to face with a parent who practically did not exist in childhood, which seems to have left a void in him that torments him in adulthood. After all, are we the way our educators make us? “So many tons of ink have been spilled, but I have also personally dealt with this issue, so I don’t think any further arguments are needed to prove it. The bottom line is to try it personally, but I would say more as a society, to understand which of the models that were passed down to us by the previous ones, we keep and which ones we discard in order to live more freely, which means closer to what we really need. In a rapidly changing environment, this is not the easiest thing to do.”

Before all this, however, there was the first part, decidedly faster in rhythm and humorous in style, which mostly deals with the paranoia of Greek justice, as much as happened with the healthcare system in 2010’s Out of the Bones. » Greek authorities?

“I would not call them unacceptable, efforts are being made and something is improving all the time. Only this is done at an eastern snail’s speed, but you need to run like Usain Bolt. Fortunately, in every field there are people who try, usually silently and without recognition, to whom we owe a lot. I feel indebted to them and I try to make my films a small token of gratitude for what they do. I respect and admire the endurance of those who are trying to “do their job well” in our country. They have always been the audience that I wanted to convey to my film.”

Let’s not end with “well-paid waiters” of foreign manufacturers

As we said above, the generation – or generations, depending on how you look at it – of the crisis is here in the center. People aged 25-35 and a little older who have essentially experienced nothing but an incessant period of uncertainty, blackness and all sorts of threats in adulthood. Emigration was the way out for many of them, but those who remained, along with those who could return, would gradually occupy the next day’s building. What supplies and burdens, according to Sotiris Goritsas, do they carry with them in this test?

“Their greatest advantage is that they appear to be free from the obsessions and political allegiances that plagued my generation and the generation immediately preceding mine. Of course, we had our own reasons for this our ideological schizophrenia. The difference between me and the younger ones is that they often go to the other extreme and, disgusted by the ideological and political nonsense of their parents, grandparents, it is difficult to distinguish between what they “personally” concern – and rightly so – is directly related to politics and society. But I am optimistic that they will find their way. Make your own mistakes and don’t repeat ours.”

However, if there is one sector that has shown signs of growth in our country in recent years, it is cinema after the economic recovery provided by the work of EKOME and the subsequent attraction of foreign film projects. In addition, Greek producers are now more extroverted, looking for opportunities to expand their activities outside of Greece while expanding a talent pool that (also) serves as a role model at home.

“Working on this film with the 35-40 year old generation made me feel optimistic again after a long time. I feel we are in good hands, at least much better than my generation. Any contact with the outside is beneficial because it frees us from the curse of a “closed” society. I also experienced it myself, having the opportunity to study abroad, to which I owe a lot. In this direction of our contact with the outside world, EKOME certainly helps if it understands that yes, it is good for Greek cinema to support foreign productions made in our country as long as Greek cinema continues to exist. Otherwise, there is a risk of being “well-paid waiters” of foreign manufacturers. As always, the pendulum swings from one extreme to the other until, hopefully, one day it balances.”

In “Where We Live”, in addition to Aliferopoulou and Maina, Makis Papadimitriou, Christina Tsafu, Maria Callimani, Gerasimos Skiadaresis, Natalia Tsaliki, Lena Papaligura, Argyris Bakirtzis, Yulika Skafida and others play.