Lena Platonos

Lena Platonos, a major figure in the Greek music scene who has proven to be ahead of her time in terms of her groundbreaking work in electronica, is now receiving a surge of international attention, thanks to album re-issues and remixes. Both established and up-and-coming artist cite her as a key influence for her experimentations in sound, her eerie lyrics and her unique, uncompromising approach to creating music and art. With the help of collaborators, friends and international musicians of the electronic music scene such as Alexis Taylor of Hot Chip and the Red Axes, the film goes back to the time her revolutionary records were made.

The Idomeni refugee camp housed people from the Middle East who were trying to cross the border into Europe. When the Greek police closed the camp, the refugees resisted and blocked a railway line used to deliver goods. Maria Kourkouta’s minimalist documentary not only observes these events but also presents carefully modeled static images that open up the space within and without the frame of view, and in the closing black-and-white sequence offers a poetic commentary. The result is a bleak portrait of a place where endless lines of refugees try to preserve the final remnants of their individual freedoms. “This film is a call to welcome the refugees that cross the European borders, as well as the ghosts that return with them.”