10th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival –
Images of the 21st Century
March 7-16, 2008
PRESS RELEASE
WORKSHOP: MUSIC IN THE DOCUMENTARY
“Music interests me more as a social phenomenon and less as an artistic achievement”, the journalist Leonidas Antonompoulos stated during the first workshop of the 10th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival - Images of the 21st Century. He is known from the State television series “Musicians of the World”. The workshop was called “Music in the Documentary”, and it took place on March 9, in Warehouse 1 at the port. Coordinator was the journalist and film critic Giorgos Krassakopoulos.
Mr. Antonopoulos congratulated the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival for the emphasis and support it has given to documentaries on music, and when asked how he explains why the specific genre is so popular he answered: “Music is a means of expression, a vital part of social activity and unavoidably, cinema, as an art form, must follow it”.
He told the audience about his personal experience over the last three years, through his work on the series “Musicians of the World”. “Music and journalism can be combined, though in Greece they used to be completely different things. It doesn’t interest me to speak about music itself, but about musicians as part of a society. Even after 20 years, the same records are heard in a different way. This is the sensitivity of art”.
He also stressed that over time he has changed the image he had on a few things. “I was recording and transmitting to the viewer these continuous changes. It is a powerful experience to see stereotypes destroyed. You see that there is no such thing as the myth of the exotic that the west has cultivated from the end of the 19th century. I tried to get rid of the image of the exotic native. Many don’t want to destroy the myth they have created, listening to music from their couch”, he said, and added that our country has fallen into this trap.
“Time, duration and budget are limited, and some missions are more expensive than others. It is also significant that in television, one needs a presenter. If I were making documentaries for cinemas, I wouldn’t appear anywhere. Quite possibly I wouldn’t be heard either”, Mr. Antonopoulos continued, noting the difficulties of approaching the language of the documentary on television and concluded by saying that his experience made him avoid resorting to archival material and reach his goal sooner: “I am a journalist and not a music researcher, so I couldn’t only speak of music as an art”.
