TV: The Voice of Europe talks with Theopi Skarlatos, Director of #ThisIsACoup

TRANSCRIPT 

Hello and welcome to another Voice of Europe from the PressProject in Greece. Ι'm Christos Ntatsios. Α couple of days ago I had the chance to watch a documentary about the first Syriza government and the negotiations that took place between this government and the European creditors of our country. It was a very interesting documentary so I decided to speak with Theopi Scalatos, the director of the documentary the documentary was narrated and produced by Paul Mason which you all know since we've already had an interview with him. Theopi hello and thank you for coming before we start we have a small teaser from the documentary if you would like we could watch. So Theopi, just a couple of questions for you, first of all why did you decide on a documentary and not a media report, a film or something like that?

-Well I mean that's why I come from a journalistic background and a lot of reporters a lot of people from mainstream media when they were covering the crisis they rock up to Greece, and you know they might spend a few days here or they might cover the economics of the situation, the politics of the situation, but perhaps they don't have enough time as they would like, to really go into a theme or subject and look at it in the way that we were able to. Because pretty much we spend the whole of last year making this documentary and it all started out really in a short film, a short documentary 15 minute film that we decided to make in January and that was documenting the rise of this strange radical left party that looked like it might come to power. And when it did it was kind of impossible to put the cameras down so we knew that we had to try and continue filming in some way not really knowing what exactly you know we wanted to do probably at the beginning. But then we managed to kind of raise enough money to keep keep people on the ground, keep our cameras rolling and that's how the documentary initially took shape.

– You managed to get some amazing footage from inside the the corridor inside the closed rooms where all these changes in all the negotiations and all the thinking was made. Was this a government which was happy to show you everything did you get full access?
-Νo I think that you know it's impossible for it was impossible for anybody to get complete access but there is a level of trust that you have to obtain as a filmmaker and I think because we kind of spent so much time in January filming the short film we spend so much time with the campaigners and the SYRIZA youth and you know MP's but we kind of got got to form a relationship at the beginning which put us ahead I suppose in that sense.

-You have also included, in your narrative you have also included a part of the population those who, at the time were proSyriza,  for the government. They were demonstrating with the government and and I have to say having lived this through this period myself it was very well made in in the sense that it managed to convey exactly what was happening in the streets.
-Well there was this amazing atmosphere ever since, you know the initial election win or even before that in January and just the air seemed to smell different and it was you know because that did seem to be hope and I remember thinking you know for the last few years nobody was really…didn't feel like anybody was really doing anything nobody was kind of out there demonstrating nobody felt like they had anything to fight for and then slowly bit by bit by the time we got to January it just felt like the whole atmosphere had changed and so in terms of the narrative we knew that we really wanted to look at the situation at a political level of what was going on as much as we could do behind the corridors of within the corridors of power. But then at the same time it was really important for us to kind of look at this atmosphere of hope and you know what was going on on the ground as well with just you know normal everyday people. The result of two layers to the document change in that sense that we tried to keep alive as we were filming.

-Yeah about about this hope I we've all lived through that period and we have seen how this this period included the first part where the hope was very very high and Greeks and the government believed that they could try to change the behavior of Europe of the Eurozone towards Greece and then we saw the capitulation. The complete the complete the change of and the negation of all hope.

-Well there's always the sense to me that the people were stronger than the politicians in the sense that they really believed that they could change things they really I think I don't know if I'm right but I really feel like although society was so polarized at that point you know during the referendum it felt like half of the society was really, you know, prepared to just kind of give everything up but retain their dignity and then there was a complete, you know, sort of opposing side of society that didn't want to lose that connection still with Europe so it was really strange to kind of see Greece in that situation . Completely polarized like that and and I think that it's so clear when you look at it when you see it in the film that that the people always felt like that was stronger than the politicians and they eventually, you know,  didn't live up to the promises that they made back in January.

-Yeah I know. The title of the documentary ΤhisisaCoup came to you during the the most dramatic part of the negotiations between the Eurozone and the Prime, the GreekPrime Minister and if you would like to tell us a little bit about this because it was a very…it was a key moment in the way Europeans started understanding what's happening in Europe.

-Yeah I mean the message spread everywhere you look at the graphic in the documentary and see you know all the different countries that you people were tweeting this hashtag from. Its amazing to see people tweeting tweeting that and people really sort of Greece being you know literally on the map and people wanting to know what exactly was going on and still to this day you know I really don't know who knows apart from, you know, the man himself what actually happened in that room behind those doors.

-A question I have always had for people who decide to to to follow a specific narrative, you now know things that you didnt know then, you now know what what has happened to this whole negotiation and the first period of the first radical left government of Greece. Would you have changed anything at that time said told the story differently?

– I think really the only thing that a filmmaker can hope to do is gain as much access as you can in order to cover what was happening it at the time as much as you can and I think I can definitely say that we you know we did our best in doing that and we were we were given great access you know Parliament we were able to film in Parliament and personally I think that that is amazing as you know record that will stand the test of time and be there you know in Greek history if anybody wants to see it but would I change anything in the narrative? Not really because I don't really think we we were trying to as filmmakers tella particular story. I really do think that you know we were trying to kind of document the story of the left as it happened and we only can kind of create that story based on what we actually saw. So I really tried to to to tell the story as I saw it as a person as you know all the other people in the documentary. Dina, Ilias saw it also with their own eyes and I think I think it you know the same time it is up to the viewer or the person who's watching the documentary to kind of make their own conclusion at the end and I really don't think that we sort of had a message to deliver with this documentary and we just tried to tell the story as it happened.
-What's amazing to me is that some of the stronger, strongest moments of the documentary have to do with demonstrations of the people at a time when I say again the people were demonstrating for the government. Now as you know since the documentary we've had new elections and SYRIZA coming back to power but they have capitulated to the to the will of the Eurozone so they now have to aim to impose a new deal and we now have demonstrations against the government.

-Which which is great because people always have to make their voices heard.
-Yeah thats a new documentary.

-Yeah and actually my feel was after we finished filming the documentary and after this third bailout deal was signed that people wouldn't go out on the streets anymore because there was this strange eeriness this strange quiet atmosphere after the deal was signed and and and you'll see because we interviewed Dina, the actress who is in documentary, kind of in Syntagma square below the Parliament and nobody really knows what to say what's going on and it's very it was a very strange time. And I did wonder then whether people would just sort of go back into their houses and think “Well that's it, we cant do anything” or whether they would continue to demonstrate. So actually it is great to see you know I have heard members of Syriza themselves say we encourage this and we want this and I don't think they would say otherwise, I think people should never stop.

-Yeah we we've talked about it and you told me that it was your decision to stay within Greece and to film and tell us a story only from the Greek side from inside the government and the people. At the same time something similar was happening in Europe in the Eurozone lets say “against” Greece against what we were trying to do. From what you have seen have you got any idea of the way Europe works when it faces such such an opposition?

-Well we were never allowed to go on you know film those meetings so, I mean, now we can only trust the accounts of people who are in them you know like Euclid and Varoufakis. People who were actually in them and what they say and I know that Varoufakis is writing a lot of things and I'm sure he has a lot more to say about what actually what actually went on. But I mean first of all it was kind of impossible for us to even try and tell that story from over there because it would have involved us paying for cameramen over there to do that job and we had a set amount of money from crowdfunding but actually documentaries can be quite expensive to make so we, in the end you know. We we chose to tell the story from here because we knew that that was the best job that we could do.

-I would like to thank you and congratulate you on a very very good job I enjoyed it very much and I strongly urge you to watch the documentary. Its called #thisisacoupand you can find it in YouTube for free. And it was Christos Ntatsios for thePressProject, the Real News Network and the Voice of Europe. Thank you.