On Friday, December 18, 2015 at 20:30 we invite you to the presentation of the documentary: “Partisan Nitsa – Eleni Papayiannakis, called Electra. Women branches”
at EXILE ROOM, 12 Athinas St. Monastiraki.
As Walter Benjamin wrote in Theses on the Philosophy of History, “the authentic image of the past passes fleetingly”. The past can be perceived only as an image sparkling at the moment of its recognition and then is lost forever. “The truth will not escape us”.
Her image is only a family photo with which, as well as with the photo of her brother, we grew up. In the documentary, her image is recognized through the testimonies of her comrades and her sister’s, through the visit at the place, through books about the Civil War, through archival research. On the occasion of her own story, we can recognize the stories of other women who came to the Mountain, driven by deep desire, and who participated in the impossible Revolution which was the Civil War, and thus conquered equality and freedom.
Her story does not belong only to the family memory, but also to the collective memory, as it is part of the history of the impossible Revolution, with the great social dynamics, which in our days, within the crisis and the state of exception, seems imperative to reflect on.
During the visit, the Mountain unfolds before us, powerful as well as vulnerable. Her story, untold.
She joined the rebels in the Mountain at a very young age, leaving the warmth of an urban life in the city. She was a fighter of the Democratic Army, lived in the Mountain and killed during a conflict on April 18, 1949, in the location Sideroporti near Kallikratis village, at Sfakia.
For years, no one talked about her because the wound was deep and the defeat was present. There are only few references.
The montage joined together the fragments, and her story came out, revealing at the same time the landscape of the Revolution at Chania and elsewhere.
The decision to show for the first time the documentary in Athens in December was not random.
It is an opportunity to reflect on them-her and make thoughts about the present of our lives. You must change your life. Life must change.
The book-talisman will be there as well.
Photo: Stefanos Chandelis, Eleni Tzirtzilaki, Maria Damkalidi
Montage: Maria Damkalidi
Research-Writing: Eleni Tzirtzilaki
Testimonies: Argiro Kokovli, Lefteris Iliakis, Antigoni Papayiannakis-Kelly, Mary Kelly, Antrianni, Giorgos Tzirtzilakis
Read out: Angelina Vakalis, Magdalene Kristalinnou, Eleni Tzirtzilaki
Nomadic Architecture (www.nomadikiarxitektoniki.net)
