THE HELLENIC JOURNAL – NOVEMBER 15, 1979

Greece’s women filmmakers: Gaining ground in a man’s world
By Mel Schuster

Editor’s note: Factual information for this article is based largely on an interview conducted in Athens, summer 1979, with filmmaker Gay Angelis, who is also active in the Athens women’s movement. Additional observations were contributed by filmmakers Tonia Marketaki and Lena Voudouri.

The women’s liberation activity in Athens rumbles with the same discord and growing organization which characterized the beginnings of its sister movement in the U.S. As subject, the movement has received minimal attention in Greek film, but female filmmakers in Greece forge ahead, making their presence felt, which, in turn, sparks the array of consequences well-known to sophisticates of the U.S. women’s movement history.
The presence of women in Greece’s film history is not new; the traditionally acceptable functions of writing and editing have long been fulfilled by women. Despite a film history dating back to 1906, it was not until 1950 that Greece saw its first film by a native woman filmmaker.
Maria Plyta, now living in retirement in Athens, was a writer of novels and screenplays. Through her husband, a film producer, she became knowledgeable of the business and craft of filmmaking. When he retired, she continued in his stead, becoming Greece’s first female film producer. In 1948 she started work on a film destined to be the first Greek film directed by a woman. She also wrote and produced the film, Before the Wedding, which was released in 1950.
In 1979, Gay Angelis created a 20-minute documentary for television in which Ms. Plyta discussed her films and her life now. Film critics, responding to the revival of interest in Ms. Plyta, pointed out that most of her 25 films were “women’s films”, meaning romantic melodramas. Ms. Angelis defends Ms. Plyta’s films: “Her films are important because, although not specifically about women’s problems, it is very clear that the films were made from a woman’s point of view. To explain the differences between the sexes is too difficult, even if I spoke English better. But at least I can say that men make films from their own sense of reality. Women have yet to completely define their reality, so their expressions of that reality are less than perfect.”
“Maria Plyta’s films may seem less than perfect now, but they are honest insofar as they are able to express her degree of self-awareness. They are self-based from a woman’s point of view.”
It was not until 1958 that a second female filmmaker emerged. Lila Courcoulakou made The Island of Silence, beginning a career which continues to the present, currently working in television. (The inexhaustible interest in politics in Greece necessitates pointing out that Lila Courcoulakou made a political film in 1961, attaining the distinction of being the first female to make a political statement through film.)
Short films proliferate in Greece (as everywhere) as apprentice vehicles for the would-be filmmaker. Females began to invade this expression in 1964 with Emilia Provia’s Promenade. Since that time, the Thessaloniki Film Festival has screened the products of over 20 female filmmakers. A successful short signals the likely future of a feature film – such were the cases of Tonia Marketaki and Lena Voudouri, both of whom have produced feature films and are currently working in television. (Television work in Greece seems to be an economical necessity rather than a chosen career. It is something to do while trying to find finances for a next film.)
The only film thus far to examine overtly the position of the Greek female is Women Today, made in 1977 by Popi Alkouli. Gay Angelis: “When she began this film, she didn’t know very much about women’s problems in Greece, but she was attracted to the idea. So she learned as she made it. She talks to the female workers, women in the feminist organizations, etc.”
The problems of the Greek female echo those defined by the early women’s movement in the U.S.; though detailed with enthusiasm by Ms. Angelis, they need only be documented herein, because she travels familiar ground: job/salary inequity; dual sexual standards (“the male suffers the classic Casanova syndrome; the female is expected to be a virgin at marriage”); paternal dictatorship in the home; ignorance of pregnancy prevention; social pressures to marry and make a home for the husband; socially repressed homosexuality (“lesbians are still in the closet”); patronism by men toward the woman who might invade his social or professional “domain”.
The degree to which these problems exist in film has been manifested behind the camera rather than in front. Lena Voudouri has had minimal problems, likely explained by the fact she specialized in her subject matter and therefore presents no threat to her male counterparts. (Her most famous film is a study of the Karaghiozis puppet theatre; her films also have to do with cultural subjects.) Tonia Marketaki’s films, however, may be regarded as more competitive by the male filmmakers, and she has experienced financing problems which she considers above and beyond the norm (a major problem for all filmmakers in Greece). In her relations with potential producers, she has had to endure patronism (“you’re too pretty to be a filmmaker”) and attempted seduction. Once beyond the financing hurdle, she registers no problems with male crew members.

Gay Angelis agrees with this observation: “When I was making my films, my crew was all male. I had no problems, because I knew what I was doing, what I wanted, and they responded professionally. But I have seen men work well with women on the basis of the “kinder” side of chauvinism. That is, since she is a woman, the men are very gentle and tolerant. The female might even know she is being treated thus, but in order to get the job done, she utilizes this, which means, in essence, that she is helping sustain the system.
“It can be only a question of time before the female consciousness becomes a subject for filming. The ancient tragedies, for instance, are full of wonderful women who deserve the attention of the filmmaker. However, it is difficult for a woman to find solutions to her own definition within the cinema in Greece. Cinema itself is so ill-defined, that the differences between the sexes become quite obscured.
“The filmmaker’s job demands great time and emotion; the female filmmaker simply cannot divide herself into multiple facets and hope to succeed in all roles. I would love to have children, but I also must approach such an eventuality with great conscience. I love films, and I dream of strapping the baby on my back and continuing with my work. But, of course, I know such a solution is far from simple.
“Slowly the female gains equal ground in Greek cinema. Perhaps some of the male filmmakers in their 30s and 40s retain a more chauvinistic attitude, but the younger, struggling-to-be-heard male filmmakers register no hostility or awareness of difference. But that is not said to minimize the problems of the female filmmaker. Unfortunately, to prove herself, she frequently has to do twice as much as would be expected of the man, just merely to prove she can do it.”