Panel Talks

Resistances at the edge of legality

Amidst rising fascisms and state repression against that falls heavy on movements for equality and justice for all, now is the time to think about what form should our resistances take.

Following Assata Shakur’s quote: “Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them”; if one is to recognise that we can find no solace in the rule of law and the institutions that represent it, we are free to imagine endless possibilities for our resistances.

Between practices of self-defense, self-organised networks of care and rescue,
citizens’ journalism and the ethics of witnessing, we find space to refuse the status quo and create our own meanings of justice.

Participants:
Giorgos Poulopoulos, member of Copwatch GR
Georgia Skartadou, researcher at Forensic Architecture Initiative Greece
Anastasia Tsoukala, researcher at Centre d’Etudes sur les Conflits, Liberté et Sécurité (Paris)

Moderation:
Nikos Papakostas, co-founder and executive officer of Inter Alia

Followed by the screening:  Taking Back What’s Ours (96’) 

The heroes of these stories refuse to accept injustice as a given, and will take matters into their own hands, even if it means challenging the rule of law.

Films:

1. Lalla: singer, rapper, danger, dir. Holy Fatma (France, 18’) | GREEK PREMIERE
2. Hopepunk, dir. Vas Lazaridou (Greece, 20’)
3. Fragments of Resistance, dir. Levan Tskhovrebadze/ Ani Kiladze (Georgia, 24’) | GREEK PREMIERE
4. Taratsa, dir. Dimitra Chrysoula (Greece, 29’)

How do we claim the right to land, beyond the logic of ownership and appropriation?

In a world where dispossession and displacement are becoming the norm, communities are struggling to find words and tools to resist a growing threat: a threat to what we call home, against memory, identity and belonging. Building our resistances requires creativity and commitment, in order to find ways to rethink and defend our relationship with land, without reproducing arguments born from dominant, capitalist, and nationalist frameworks of thought.

Participants:
Nikos Kourachanis, Researcher, Assistant Professor in Social Policy and Housing, Panteion University
Nefeli Rapsomaniki, Thessaloniki Renters’ Union
Eleni Tzirtzilaki, PhD architect—performs in public space, city, and landscape, nomadikiarxitektoniki.net

Moderator:
Eva Betavatzi, member of the European Action Coalition for the Right to Housing and the City

Followed by the screening: The Struggle for Home (105′)

Battles against the violence of “gentrification,” expropriation, and uprooting. Claiming the right to land beyond the logic of ownership and appropriation.

Films:

1. Losing your home, dir. Emmanuel Rioux (Canada, 19’)
2. Orange, dir. Nóra Horváth (Romania, 15’)
3. The Tooth and the Rock, dir. Kostis Alevizos (Greece, 19’)
4. Mango, dir. Randa Ali (Egypt, 23’)
5. When the land runs away, dir. Frederico Lobo (Portugal, 29’)

Inspired by International Women’s Day and the feminist strike, this discussion creates a space to talk about grief, about memory that is lost, memory that is rewritten and memory that struggles to be preserved.

In opening this conversation, we aim to question which individuals have the power to control what is recorded in memory, in the archive, in history, and whose voices are given the right and opportunity to be heard. This space prioritizes testimony, shared experiences, and the reclaiming of voices often silenced in public discourse and spaces. Finally, we discuss grief as resistance, grieving for what has been lost and what we see slipping away.

With: Rea Valden, Bricena Gkisto, Zoe Kokka, Maria Louka

The discussion was simultaneously interpreted in Greek sign language by Liminal.

The discussion was followed by a screening of the set “The Key of Memory”.

What counts as memory? What is recorded in the file? Who determines the right and ability to remember?

The films were accompanied by closed captioning (CC) to accommodate people with hearing impairments.

Films:

1. Lumen, dir. Eirini Tzoulia (Greece, 20’)
2. The End, dir. Fernando Reinaldos (Spain, 10’)
3. Red Cassette, dir. Victor Bastidas (Colombia, 14’)
4. Voulolimna, dir. Nefeli Papaioannou (Greece, 18’)
5. Fragments, Marie-Lou Béland (Canada, 8’)
6. Totems, Arthur Cahn (France, 25’)

Science fiction writing has long been working on the concept of dystopia. By imagining bleak future worlds, sci-fi artists have deepened our understanding of the present. Control, inertia, and isolation have sparked their imagination. The long period of the pandemic brought dystopia to the forefront: violence, despair, and pressing social issues that emerged, not just due to the pandemic but mainly because of oppressive systems of social hierarchy, made the concept of dystopia more present and more politically critical than ever before. In an attempt to eliminate this uncomfortable concept, existing power structures encourage us to move towards self-help and individual responsibility.

Against this reality, PDSFF believes in the power of stories: narratives that shape our imagination, create worlds, and shed light on the most invisible, marginalized sides of our society. We tell ourselves stories all the time, even in our sleep. Stories allow us to share pain, connect, and—far from toxic positivity and alienating success stories—imagine alternatives.This conversation intends to think about storytelling as a strategy of resistance.

Moderation:

Despina Katapoti, Associate Professor of Cultural Studies and Digital Culture at the University of the Aegean, editor of the collective volume Black Mirror: The Black Mirror of Digitality (Kastaniotis Editions).

Participants:

Christina Voulgari, Stand-Up Comedian, Founder of Snap – Athens Queer Comedy Club
Elina Roinioti, Sociologist, Researcher in the field of digital games
Nikos Daskalopoulos, Journalist

Followed by the screening of the set “Ongoing Dystopias” (83′).

Dystopias are not only in the future. They are here right now, urging us to face them.

Films:

1. Toutes les nuits (France, 20′)
2. Not Today (Turkey, 14′)
3. Snowdrops at the End of the Train (Bulgaria, 25′)
4. Lost and Found (Germany, 28′)
5. Katvoman (Iran, 8′)

For the “patriarchs” of linguistic references, the media, and public figures, masculinity and manhood are understood as synonymous with certain symbolic references: dominance, power, and control. These references shape behavioral models that oppress those who do not embody them while simultaneously alienating those who pursue them from themselves, constituting a society of oppression on one hand and frustration on the other.

Using a combination of the empirical and scientific references of the speakers and the maching short film set, we create a space to discuss alternative masculinities: masculinities that are deconstructed, threatened, eroded, and reinvented to fit sensitivity in a complex and contradictory society.

Participants:

Αntonis Poulios, clinical psychologist, psychoanalyst,
Dimitris Terzis, journalist,
Anna-Maria Papacharalampous, actress,
Anna Kouroupou, director of Red Umbrella Athens,
Aggeliki Serafim, lawyer.

Moderation:
Mel Kalfanti, Positively Different Short Film Festival, PhD candidate in gender studie

Followed by screening of the set “Symptoms of Masculinity”.

Films:

1. Bolzmann, dir. Janis Westphal (Germany, 30′)
2. I am Matteo, dir. Loris Di Pasquale (Italy, 24′)
3. An ocean, dir. Paul Scheufler (Germany, 19′)
4. Beauty Boys, dir. Florent Gouelou (France, 18′)

This discussion aimed to explore ways of addressing collective traumas caused by regimes of power and experiences of violence. From street activism to digital community building and online activism, the strategies that traumatised communities develop for their survival and empowerment are captured and communicated through cinema.

In this panel, Gevi Dimitrakopoulou and Sam Albatros, creators of visual arts and documentaries, who participated in PDSFF with their films, meet with Elena Olga Christidi, psychologist, scientific director of Orlando LGBT+. The discussion is moderated by Mel Kalfanti, a member of the PDSFF team and a PhD candidate in anthropology and gender studies. The participants will discuss, through experiential and theoretical tools, their own ways of dealing with these traumas, the reasons they choose digital media to manage them, as well as the opportunities and limitations that the digital condition provides.

Ultimately, this panel contributed to the ongoing discussion about the potential of digital media to create spaces for encountering and managing trauma—spaces that might not exist in the “physical” world. The pandemic, having forced all activities, including the Positively Different Festival, into the digital realm or to a halt, creates the right conditions to reflect on these possibilities, moving beyond a one-sided perspective that only acknowledges limitations.