The only thing that’s certain is that tonight, summer movie Mytilinioi villages in Samo, few eyes will stay dry. And not because some touching science fiction film will be shown there, but because sometimes reality itself and History are much more dramatic than any imagination.

Except documentary “Izmir, the destruction of a cosmopolitan city, 1900-1922” her Maria Helios it is full of images, photos and videos that are hard to misinterpret. Evidence not only of the disaster, but also of the multicultural miracle that preceded it, which in its own way makes it all the more poignant.

But let’s go in order. On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the disaster in Asia Minor and within the framework of the exhibition “Handmade: for the Social Aspects of the Craft”, which is being held at the Art Space Pythagorion in Samos by the Schwartz Foundation in collaboration with the National Museum of Contemporary Art, this special documentary premiered in Benaki Museum in 2012.

It is unique in that, among other things, it contains material unknown to the general public, obtained as a result of studying American and European archives.

“Research on this film, along with other related projects, began in 2005 in Europe and America. There we found materials that we had never seen before, both from life in Smyrna and from the Holocaust. We found, for example, combustible film from the French Pathe (and not the well-known American), which, if properly preserved, gave us new images of the burning city, but also the possibility of increasing, so we have a completely new angle. In addition, we were contacted by a descendant of an Armenian from Smyrna, an immigrant to America, who gave us a film with rich material from both the peaceful period and the days of the Holocaust,” says the filmmaker.

We have always heard that Smyrna was Greek, but the truth is that she was multicultural and that was her strength.

The truth is that the first two parts of the Helios movie are a tour of an (almost) earthly paradise. A city where Greeks, Armenians, Turks and Levantines coexist harmoniously in a mixture of languages ​​and cultures that only applies to modern metropolitan areas.

We do not just hear all this from the descriptions of Alexander Kitroev, Giles Milton and other advisers-historians, but we see in photographs and videos of that time, from the famous Smyrna embankment to the Opera House, the surroundings and the field around it. , accompanied by the beautiful background music of Nikos Platyrachos.

“As a native of Smyrna, I heard stories from my father and remember that they were very different from the “official” version. We have always heard that Smyrna was Greek, but the truth is that she was multicultural and that was her strength. Our goal was to tell the story objectively, with new thinking and new material.”

The third part of the film, of course, is the most “heavy”, the Catastrophe itself and the events that preceded it. Here, what we see on the screen is “far from both an overly nationalist narrative and the newer attempts to hush up tragic events,” as Maria Iliou points out. “Furthermore, in telling the story before and after September 1922, it was important to represent the various communities, especially the Greeks, Armenians, and Turks.”

Entrance to the show, which starts at 21:00, is free.