Greek director Elina Psykou, whose Stray Bodies plays in CPH:DOX F:ACT AWARD, spoke to BDE about the recent controversy in Thessaloniki over the film’s poster that depicts a semi-naked and pregnant Madonna who is nailed to the Cross.
On the day of the world premiere (March 12) the Greek authorities were forced to call a ban on demonstrations after a protest against the film was announced. A large police presence was deployed. “It was a dystopic atmosphere,” the director tells BDE.
The world premiere screening went ahead without incident, but Psykou was the target of hate mail and admits to apprehension over the film’s release in Greece on March 28.
The situation can be traced back to February 26, when the conservative NIKI (Victory) party demanded in the Greek Parliament that the Minister of Culture put pressure on the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival not to display the poster.
Nothing seemed to come of this until five days later when Psykou began to receive online hate mail. “People started to attack me in my social media, on my Facebook and on my Instagram…[saying] that I am a whore, that I am a lot of things.” There were approximately 500 comments, she estimates, “all with the same intensity.”
“It was very well organized. It was a campaign,” Psykou adds. “And then this campaign continued against the festival. All these people started to call and write to the festival and ask not to play the movie, to withdraw the poster.”
At both Thessaloniki screenings of the film, the police searched the bags of all audience members. “I have to say that this is not the way that I want screenings to happen,” says Psykou.
The subject of Stray Bodies is the boom in cross-border “medical tourism” over recent years, and follows three European women who must leave their own countries for reasons of abortion, IVF treatment or assisted suicide.
“Behind all these topics, there is life and death and body,” Psykou explains of her poster design. “I had this idea of a woman whose face will be like the Virgin Mary’s, and to be on the Cross. Because for me, this pregnant woman on the Cross symbolizes life and death together. At the same time it symbolizes all the passions that the body in general, but also the female body, has [suffered] all these years.”
“Of course the fanatic Christians didn’t see it in this way. And if you read all these comments written on my social media, you’d wonder if these people are Christians – because love is the message of Christianity.”
The film will be released by CineDoc March 28 in Athens and across selected cinemas within other Greek cities. “Yes, we will use the poster,” she reassures.
“I have to say that both the festival and the Greek distributor supports me a lot in this bad situation,” she adds. “There was also very big support from my colleagues and from the other directors and producers, big support from The Greek Film Centre and all the unions. I was very moved by the people of the industry.”
“There were a couple of days when I felt a lot of fear, but then I decided that I don’t want to have fear in my life and that I wanted to manage this situation more dynamically,” Psykou adds. “I don’t want to let fear conquer. But I have to admit that now after all these days, I’m very exhausted.”
“I haven’t been used to such exposure,” Psykou says. Stray Bodies is her third film (she won the Jury Award, Best International Narrative Feature for her Son of Sofia in 2017), but it is her first documentary. “For me, this was a very new thing. A new experience. And I felt a bit insulted after so many years in this job and in the industry that now a lot of people discover me and my work because of this situation.”
The divisive poster is, at least for now, designed for use solely in Greece. “We don’t have an international poster yet. It is something that we discussed, but we haven’t decided yet,” says Psykou. International sales of the film are handled by Cinephil.
The final CPH:DOX screening of Stray Bodies is on Sunday March 24, which will be followed by a Body Politics debate on “bodily autonomy across borders.”
