«It was taking the evening. The noise of the cypresses diminished. The candles of heaven were lit... The child did not sleep that night... the whole night. He wrote his bitterest, longest tale...
At dawn it began. It was... comforted. He had managed all night to count the stars... To count them all... slowly... one by one... All... And he got it right.’
In this life, there are some secret codes. One of them has to do with the sanctity of some of our choices. And choices are always recorded in the memory, like unedited shots that you measure, evaluate and compose in your screenwriting canvas. Sort of like what happens when a child stays awake to count stars. Either in the universal world, or in the celluloid world. And where children discover the gold dust of the big screen, the dreams expand. And they move to other galaxies.
The Kythera.News starts a cycle of interviews - articles to introduce the young people of the island to the wondrous world of Seventh Art, through their participation in film courses, which led to participation in prestigious institutions such as the Olympia Festival. There, where the Kythera They were preeminent. There, where the children were awarded. And they learned to make up worlds in other worlds, like dreams caught in the wake of a reality from which we all strive to escape, to exorcise and to improve.
That is, after all, the art of cinema. To learn to listen to the vibrations of the outside world and to use them to create scripts, on which you tie the threads of small birds that you have dug up with the feathers left over from the stardust that fell out of your dream last night. When, you stayed awake counting the stars.
It all started in the autumn of 2014, when the well-known Kytherian director and editor, George Didymiotis, launched seminars on the art of filmmaking at the Kythira High School. The activity was integrated into the school's cultural programme, initially outside the school (in the Philharmonic Hall of Potamos) and from the following year in the Computer Science Laboratory within the school, in a continuous two-hour research project of the A2 section of the A' High School.
Few at the time could have imagined that this activity would translate into 3 consecutive entries with an equal number of awards in the Olympia International Film Festival for children and young people, but also other important distinctions. Not bad, for an island, that doesn't even have a movie theater. But it has the right materials to introduce itself to the world of Seventh Art, namely vision and passion and the people who embody them.
The first participation came in 2016 with the «World Mad», which won the first prize in category C, 17-20 years old, in the Greek competition programme of 16of Camera Zizanio of 19no Film Festival of Olympia and award of the Stavrakos School.
The following year (2017), the «Swallows» repeated the success, winning the first prize in category C (ages 17-20) of the Greek section of the 17th edition of theof Camera Zizanio, in the context of the 20no International Festival of Olympia. They also won special award from the Ombudsman for Children, for the rights of refugee children and a Stavrakos School award, while they also won the 1ο Fiction award, on 8ο International Student Short Film Competition «Cinema... did you read?»
Finally, the «I need you» (2019) won the 1ο prize in category C (ages 17-20) of the Greek section of the 18th edition of theof Camera Zizanio, within the framework of the 21no International Festival of Olympia, as well as the and the 1ο Fiction Award, in the 9ο International Student Short Film Competition «Cinema... did you read?»
Starting from Friday, 07/05, Kythera.News will publish twice a week (every Tuesday and Friday) interviews with some of the key players in this experience, which helped our little place to be pinned like a newborn star in the celestial dome of the cinematic universe.
