On March 15, 2011, Thessaloniki performed a real-time digital broadcast of the doc film MY SWEET CANARY. 

13 TDF PRESS RELEASE!

The Festival’s innovative project «real-time documentary broadcast through live streaming” enjoyed great success for a second day in the evening of Tuesday, March 15, with the screening of Roy Sher’s My Sweet Canary at a packed Olympion theater.

The project is a new initiative by the TDF in collaboration with the Electroacoustics and Television Systems Workshop of Aristotle University’s Polytechnic School. Thanks to novel technologies, this is the first time an international Documentary Festival will be broadcast simultaneously to other geographic locations. The 13th TDF will be “travelling” to three Greek cities (Corfu, Rethimno and Patras) and to Nicosia, Cyprus, using the GRNET university network, in collaboration with the Ionian University, the Rethimno Technological Educational Institute, the University of Patras and Frederick University for the four cities respectively. In this way, friends of the documentary genre will have the opportunity to follow the screening simultaneously with the audience in the theater.

TDF director Dimitris Eipides, welcoming audiences in Thessaloniki and the other four cities, said he was particularly proud of this event. “I am happy for this innovation, which is bound to change the character and image of the Festival. We welcome our friends in Nicosia, Patras, Rethimno and Corfu. Our communication today, facilitated by the use of modern technology, would not have been possible without the contribution of the Aristotelian University Electroacoustics and Television Systems Workshop. I therefore wish to thank the professor in charge, Mr. Giorgos Papanikolaou, and the people we worked with from the other universities and schools”, said Mr. Eipides.

Taking the floor, Roy Sher, the Israeli director of My Sweet Canary, also welcomed the audiences and said he wished to dedicate the screening of his film to Manolis Rassoulis, the great songwriter who passed away recently. “When the film starts, you will see a man wearing a hat sitting at the stairs. I would like to dedicate the film to him. It is Manolis Rassoulis”, said Sher, receiving the warm applause of the audience.

After the screening of My Sweet Canary, which tells the story of the life and work of legendary rebetiko singer Roza Eskenazi, viewers in both Thessaloniki and the other cities were able to address questions to the filmmaker. Answering a question from a viewer in Thessaloniki on what made him decide to make a film about Eskenazi, Roy Sher replied: “A few years ago I discovered rebetiko and Xarhakos. After this initial discovery, I kept probing the history of rebetiko, when I finally came across Roza Eskenazi. What first caught my eye was her Jewish name and the unique, for western ears, sound of her music. I came to love her songs and decided to make this film”.

A viewer from Rethimno asked the director why he chose not to include any personal moments of Eskenazi. “We have over 160 hours of footage. I wish you had the patience to watch it with me… for a week. From this footage, the director and editor make the choices of what to keep in the final cut”, replied the filmmaker.

Present at the screening were also two of the musicians who have leading roles in the film, as they follow the musical steps of Eskenazi: The Greek Cypriot singer-composer Martha Lewis and the Turkish singer and musician Mehtap Demir.

-13TH TDF PRESS RELEASE

Director Roy Sher with the singers from the film.

photo by Vanessa McMahon