Note from the Editor:
Award-winning filmmaker Maria Iliou and historical consultant Alexander Kitroeff tell the story of the cosmopolitan port of Smyrna (now Izmir), Iliou’s ancestral home, which grew on the Aegean coast of the Ottoman Empire into an international center of culture, commerce, and tolerance. In 1922, over eight days it was reduced to ashes by the flames of nationalism which raged in the aftermath of World War I. This documentary demonstrated the best and worst of humanity—an early 20th Century prophecy of the turbulence to come, and a harsh but inspiring warning at start of the 21st.
“Smyrna: The Destruction of a Cosmopolitan City, 1900-1922” will be playing at QUAD cinema in West Village from April 5th to 18th 2013.
Screenings:1.00PM, 3.00PM, 5.00PM, 7.00PM, 9.30PM every day. Weekends: Additionally at 11.00AM.
Group Screenings Weekdays: 11.00AM upon request. Tickets advanced sales: www.quadcinema.com
A text by the director Maria Iliou
Smyrna of joie de vivre and lament
My personal story with Smyrna started 90 years ago when my father Andreas was born in Smyrna. He grew up in this cosmopolitan city, learned seven languages and from a young age, discovered the joie de vivre of this port city where East encountered West in every way. In 1922, after the destruction of the city, Andreas, still a child, came to live in Athens.
Ever since my childhood, Smyrna has haunted me. Smyrna existed everywhere: in our life and in our apartment on Solonos Street where I grew up. It existed in our discussions, in our dreams, and in our nightmares. The acceptance of otherness, novel ideas, music, laughter but also nostalgia for the enchanted place that my father had described, survived in every way in our day-to-day life. No other city on earth was so exceptionally unique.
The expression, “The rings fall off, but the fingers remain,” recurred frequently, as did the idea that true friendship, human relationships, and creativity are more important than anything else; not material goods that can disappear at any moment.
In my nightmares, Smyrna was burning and the sea, filled with corpses, turned completely red, while I tried to save myself, turning in my bed. Since then, I have tried to imagine the life of the city before the destruction, but the photographs had been lost in the fire. Since then I wanted to look through a keyhole or a lens to see everyday life but also what truly happened and led to the destruction.
When I left for my studies abroad and when I later lived and worked in different countries, I remained astounded that our Smyrna was unknown to the general public in Europe and the US. That was when I first read Henry Miller’s phrase, “The Smyrna affair has been expunged from the memory of present day man.”
The idea of making a film about Smyrna became an obsession. For years, I waited for the right moment to narrate the story of Smyrna. The chance to do so presented itself a few years back, when I was in the US, during the time we were working on The Journey: The Greek American Dream (Best Historical Documentary at the Houston International Film Festival 2008). It was then that I discovered unknown films and photographs of Smyrna. I felt then that the time had come to finally see the city through the real images of Smyrna. Simultaneously, The Journey had already brought about a felicitous collaboration with historian Alexander Kitroeff (Haverfor College). We began to work together once more and for the next four years it was as if we were digging the same tunnel from two different sides: Alexander through the viewpoint of the historian and me from the point of view of the filmmaker where images turned into narrative material.
The moment has come to talk not only about cosmopolitan Smyrna but also about the destruction, honoring those who lost their lives but also honoring the discipline of history. This documentary is presented 90 years after the destruction of cosmopolitan Smyrna.
We bring back images that were lost, locked away in closed cupboards, from American and European archives. However, we also take a new approach to the history of Smyrna; an approach that keeps its distance both from a nationalistic narration of the story and from more recent attempts to conceal the tragic events of the destruction, thereby distorting the truth. Furthermore, this documentary was created with the strong belief that while cosmopolitan Smyrna was destroyed in a tragic way, somehow it continues to live on.
Smyrna continues to be an idea, a way of life that has to do not only with pain and lament but also with the good moments, cosmopolitanism, and the joie de vivre.
You can carry Smyrna with you wherever you are.
Maria lives in the West Village.
