The slow travelling shot along a stone wall through whose openings we get only occasional glimpses of the azure sea suggests an antique excavation. But appearances are deceptive, for this is 1948. The world is still under the shock of the World War when old frontlines re-emerge in Greece and a violent civil war begins. The Communist Party and the National Liberation Front, who just fought the Fascists in a gruelling partisan war, are banned and 80,000 Greeks are deported to barren islands like Makronisos. The crackling loudspeakers broadcast perfidious prohibitions and the mantra of the ten commandments which demand that people renounce communism and join the patriotic fight for “God, country and freedom”. Their goal: re-education. In reality this is psychological terror, combined with harassment and torture. But the walls of Makronisos aren’t silent. Their cracks used to hide poems by many poets like Yannis Ritsos, Tassos Livaditis and Mikis Theodorakis, who were interned here. Their yearning metaphors and powerful poetry are an attempt to stand up to the crude propaganda permanently broadcast throughout the tent camp. The Swiss director Oliver Zuchuat lets the texts clash and speak for themselves in a strict and consistent composition.

Cornelia Klauß

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Preis der Ökumenischen Jury 2012

Sculptor Ingbert Brunk has found the love of his life on Naxos: marble. He came to Greece in the eighties because he couldn’t and didn’t want to live in Germany any more. In his hands the marble becomes delicate and transparent, transformed into cushions or huge gingko leaves. He says he likes to be a stranger in a strange land, it makes him feel free. Brunk has a mysterious and self-sufficient aura, even one of wisdom, conveyed in his words about the artistic process and how suffering can be seen as a stage of creating. Brunk talks about failure and growing with his material, analyses the Greek and German mentality, believes one should not lose oneself in emotion, but not be taken in by logic and reason either. He’s looking for a balance that will flow into his work with the marble. Menios Carayannis films Ingbert Brunk with fascination and respect, almost infatuation.

Carolin Weidner

Pantazis Chronopoulos is sure: If his rival for the office of Mayor got lost in the narrow, twisted streets in the hills surrounding the small Greek town of Zacharo, he would be hopelessly lost – he wouldn’t even find his way back to town without GPS. Chronopoulos, on the other hand, is at home right here: in the tiny villages, left behind by progress, where he knows exactly who to talk to in order to get not only individual votes but the votes of a whole extended family. Being a practical man, he has already brought the filled-in ballots.

Chronopoulos practises politics like a business. But not like a multinational corporation, but like a small general store rooted in the community – every euro of infrastructural assistance, every informal perk precisely convertible into numbers of votes. But attention and folksiness are resources to be constantly mobilised, too. We are always close, sitting on the passenger’s seat when Chronopoulos makes his rounds. Sooner or later a sinister suspicion creeps in: What we see here may not be a uniquely perfidious corruption of democratic mechanisms at all, but simply business as usual.

Lukas Foerster

Yasim and Alsaleh are underage refugees in a Greek prison. Coming from Syria and Iraq they were captured at the Turkish-Greek border as “illegals” and are now waiting for their trial. The charges against them are compounded by an additional serious accusation, that of having been human traffickers themselves. They were forced by threats of violence to guide a group of refugees across the border, while the smugglers stayed quietly in the background. If Yasim and Alsaleh are found guilty, they will face long prison sentences, the duration of which will be decided by the court.

Yasim is still virtually a child. He looks around with big, innocent eyes and literally understands nothing of what is happening to him. Alsaleh acts as his “big brother” and frequently helps him survive. Marianna Economou confidently weaves this narrative of two individual dramas into a universal phenomenon. Her film releases understanding and sympathy – inasmuch as after the hardships they suffered on their flight anyway you wish these boys only one thing: not to end up broken by a stone-hearted officer of justice. “The Longest Run” activates our hearts and minds – neither one without the other!

Ralph Eue

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Honorary Mention in the International Competition 2015 and awarded with the Prize of the United Services Trade Union ver.di 2015