Under These Words (Solidarity Athens 2016), Robin Vanbesien, BE 2017, 52'

Under These Words (Solidarity Athens 2016) follows three professional actors on a journey through Athens. The original idea for the film was to superimpose an allegorical fiction of Greek tragedy, Aeschylus’ Oresteia, onto the social spaces of the city that emerged following the disassembly of the various public square occupations of 2011. During their encounter with the Athenians, however, the actors fell silent and turned into listeners of their fellow citizens who are engaged in different organizations of the grassroots solidarity movement: a clinic, a pharmacy, a kitchen, a school. These daily practices—or what is being lived through self-governance, public assembly, and direct democracy in parallel to the Greek state—unfold as a transformative experience that bears the potential to change society and the very structures of its relationships and feelings.

With the support of Flemish government and the Flanders Department of Culture, Youth and Media.