1985-1986, 2010 2012

Last shooting February 2012

This film is made mainly by one person in a long shooting period (2 years in the past, 2 years in the present). It has been treated like a written diary, where the camera takes the role of the pen, and the editing the role of "emerging memories".

A woman discovers some super 8 films of the years 1985-86, from Greece, Australia and Paris when she was in her 20s.

She discovers them in 2010 during the upcoming crisis in Athens, and when her best friend dies.

She starts shooting again, among demonstrations and personal gatherings, in an environment of social despair until February 2012, the day after the “burning” of Athens.

She addresses these personal / political diaries to her old friend Peter in Australia.

Αmnesia Diaries emerged from a different creative work process to the one I was used to. The idea had come unexpectedly from a forgotten super 8 material. My Super 8 films had gotten stolen while I was a student in the 80s and, eager to put the incident behind me (it had upset me greatly), I had totally forgotten about the leftover material. 

In the begining, my first contact with the Super 8 transfers was a real shock to the system. I was fashinated by the oxidized colors and faded faces lost in time. I immediately got curious about what would happen if I juxtaposed the 25-year-old material with contemporary images, so I started documenting everyday life in Athens, and found myself getting carried away as the credit crunch deepened. The urban landscape of Athens in crisis -this time in a digital format- was filled with empty spaces «for rent» or «for sale». This "emptying" entered our lives, installing despair in society. The whole country supposed to be «for sale». 

The editing of the super 8 films concerning the era 1985-86, was made in  a paralle way with the digital shooting in 2010-2012. The juxtaposition of these two periods touched me a lot. The faded faces of the past, «fresh» however, brought the signs of  lost time.  The faces of the present seemed more insolent, although located in a tougher environment.

I decided to record my thoughts while I reviewed the material. I wanted to preserve the initial shock of reacquainting myself with the footage and revisit the feelings evoked by subsequent repeat screenings. I wanted to use the editing process as a medium to combine different time periods and process changes when the new footage was introduced into the mix.  At some point, I have been surprised with the ease of jumps in time, and the idea of a strange flash forward, when the current material will be 25 years old. I was fashinated by the hidden links between 80s and 2010s.

In forgotten personal and non-personal Αmnesia Diaries, the juxtaposition of  these two worlds was like the «end of innocence». However, that «end» it is not only the transition from youth to maturity of everyone involved, but also it declairs the end of an era for both Greece and Europe during the crisis.