{"id":4903,"date":"2025-12-04T12:29:01","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T10:29:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adoring-joliot.213-158-90-241.plesk.page\/2025\/12\/04\/the-film-from-lesvos-beachcomber-at-the-66th-thessaloniki-film-festival-creator-aristotelis-maragos-speaks\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T12:29:01","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T10:29:01","slug":"the-film-from-lesvos-beachcomber-at-the-66th-thessaloniki-film-festival-creator-aristotelis-maragos-speaks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/contemporary.culture.gov.gr\/en\/2025\/12\/04\/the-film-from-lesvos-beachcomber-at-the-66th-thessaloniki-film-festival-creator-aristotelis-maragos-speaks\/","title":{"rendered":"The film from Lesvos “Beachcomber” at the 66th Thessaloniki Film Festival – Creator Aristotelis Maragos speaks"},"content":{"rendered":"

A ship that instead of going to scrap becomes seaworthy again, a man who, in order to continue his life, must come to terms with his past and his fears, and a film that speaks of the need to continue dreaming, even when everything seems to be falling apart. This is Beachcomber by Aristotelis Marangou<\/strong> , one of the three Greek films participating in the International Competition Section of the 66th Thessaloniki Film Festival <\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The director explains that the title \u201cBeachcomber\u201d<\/strong> comes from Nikos Kavvadias and the corresponding Greek word is \u201cpitsikomis\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs Kavvadias describes, it concerns sailors who travel, but the sea does not suit them, they stumble and become dizzy. And when they return to land, after a few months they forget what they went through and want to go on a trip again,” explains Aristotle Marangos to the Athenian Macedonian News Agency, speaking of a lasting and true love for something that is against your nature, hurts you, but you cannot part with it.<\/p>\n

This is exactly what happens with his hero, Elias, played by Christos Passalis. He returns to his hometown, tells stories from his life as a sailor and gathers around him a group of marginalized people, who instead of dismantling a ship and selling the metal, inspires them to repair it and set sail on it. \u201cBut as this dream becomes more real and the ship becomes more seaworthy, Elias has to face his own lies and fears in order to be able to coexist with them,\u201d says the director.<\/p>\n

A true incident he read years ago in the news about a group of homeless people in Warsaw who, under the guidance of a priest, decided to build a ship, was the initial inspiration for the film. \u201cIn Warsaw there is no water, there is no sea. There was never a purpose for them to travel. They did it for the process, to gather, to tell stories, to coexist. And that, building a ship that would never sail, was the initial trigger,\u201d says Mr. Marangos. From there, through the pedestrians of Kavvadia and the Greek landscapes, the hero and story of the Beachcomber was born.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Lesvos, the light and the people<\/strong><\/p>\n

The film was shot entirely on Lesvos, a place that deeply influenced the director’s vision. “The island has very different qualities in the light but also in the characters who live there. This shaped the film, the way the camera and the character dream and connect the real with the dreamy. The film acrobatically straddles the two,” explains Maragos.<\/p>\n

The islanders became an integral part of the production, literally helping to set up the ship, which was actually built. \u201cAt first they looked at us with disbelief, like, \u2018What are these people doing here?\u2019, but in the end I think we won them over. We became friends,\u201d he says with a smile.<\/p>\n

Although Beachcomber is a live-action film, its directorial language carries the style of animation and experimentation that characterizes Marangos\u2019 work so far. \u201cI\u2019m not interested in experimentation for the sake of experimentation. I\u2019m interested in how cinematic language can help you understand the story. Here, the hero\u2019s father lives through tapes that he sent him from the sea. This voice influences the image, connecting reality with Elias\u2019 dreams and nightmares,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

For the director, Beachcomber is also an inner search for what it means to create. “When you have something very big in front of you, a change that you fear, that’s where you are tested. And I feel it every time I make a film. You are a bit of a beachcomber, with your crew, trying to build something fantastic and greater than the parts of the whole,” he emphasizes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Closure<\/p>\n

With an excellent cast, led by Christos Passalis, the film premiered at the Buenos Aires Film Festival and is now participating in the International Competition Section of the 66th Thessaloniki Film Festival. \u201cWe are honored that the festival chose us,\u201d says Marangos, adding that he is looking forward to seeing the film with the audience and \u201cfor the dialogue to begin after it ends.\u201d<\/p>\n

In closing, he returns to the image of the ship: \u201cUltimately, we really built the ship. And we all built it together: the team, the actors, the locals. If I am the little boy of this story, then everyone else helped me dare the journey. Because cinema is always a journey, and we are simply the ones who collect the pieces of the dream to start it,\u201d he concludes.<\/p>\n

The film Beachcomber by Aristotelis Marangos has its national premiere today at 17:00 at Olympion, with a repeat screening tomorrow at 13:00 at the John Cassavetes Hall at the port.<\/p>\n

Source: APE-MPA<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aristotle Marangos returns with inspiration from the wet poetry of Nikos Kavvadias<\/p>","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4902,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[73,113],"class_list":["post-4903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-99","tag-eng","tag-113"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/contemporary.culture.gov.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/contemporary.culture.gov.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/contemporary.culture.gov.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/contemporary.culture.gov.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/contemporary.culture.gov.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/contemporary.culture.gov.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/contemporary.culture.gov.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/contemporary.culture.gov.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/contemporary.culture.gov.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}