Recipe for fascism: Half a generation unemployed, doctors forced to choose whom to treat, social security disappearing, the public on discount.
We ask our friends in Greece to make a list of their images of the euro crisis. It becomes a warning list for the North.
DIRECTORS’ STATEMENT
We went to Athens to see what a European crisis looked like, and what the IMF and EU austerity measures had done to the country. For three years the European media had created an image of a population who do not pay taxes, live on loans and work too little. An image still reproduced by northern Europeans.
Once in Greece, we met solidarity and an organisational resourcefulness to be envied. Political discussions that made the public discourse in Northern Europe look like a joke. Among others, we met many Greeks our own age, a generation whose parents have fought for democracy, education, welfare. Now they stand educated but there are no jobs.
We saw the tourism industry of Greece, where profits hit records. The same faces behind the bar, morning and night, seven days a week.
Often when we met people in cafés for an interview they refused to let us pay- the constant joke being; they did not want to owe us, the next time we meet the coffee might be twice as expensive. Debt!
Our choice as filmmakers was to provide a space for “the missing media image” of Greece. And what about Sweden, are we having a crisis? If not, why is the unemployment growing? Why are fascist ideas taking hold? What if “the lazy Greek” is a myth established in order to maintain our own sense of security.
Director: Elisabeth Marjanović Cronvall & Marta Dauliūtė
Producer: Marta Dauliūtė & Elisabeth Marjanović Cronvall
With excerpts from “Stolen Spring” by Kajsa Ekis Ekman
DOP: Elisabeth Marjanović Cronvall
Sound recording: Marta Dauliūtė
Editing: Elisabeth Marjanović Cronvall
Sound design: Thomas Jansson
Graphic design: Aron Kullander-Östling
Colorist: Martin Steinberg
On-line: Rickard Petersen
PRODUCTION NOTES:
Country of production: Sweden, Lithuania.
Production company: MDEMC
Language: Swedish, English, Greek
Genre: documentary
Cinema length/TV-length: 14,5 min
Filming location: Greece, Sweden.
Co-produced by: Swedish Television, SVT, Andrea Östlund / Helena Ingelsten
PRODUCED WITH SUPPORT BY:
The Swedish Film Institute, Andreas Fock
Filmbasen, Film Stockholm, Anne-Marie Söhrman Fermelin
The Swedish Arts Grants Committee