Exarcheia: The Chanting of Birds

Captured in 2018, these nocturnal images capturing the streets of Athens evoke for me the passage of time. Back then, the unprecedented economic crisis that Greece had been plunged into since 2010 was finally reaching its conclusion. Eight long years for a people holding their breath, visibly running out of air.
 
And here we are again eight years later – another leap through time – before this film, witness to an era not so distant and yet seeming so far away. Those faces hollowed out by the warm light of street lamps, those protagonists exchanging dreams and aspirations before the camera's tender gaze, I wonder where they've ended up. Whether they've accomplished what they once hoped for so dearly. And those walls, are they still adorned with all those anti-capitalist graffiti, those calls to make (and remake) the revolution?
 
Exarcheia, a small neighbourhood nestled in the heart of the Greek capital, is like an antenna, or rather a hypersensitive membrane, that captures every political tremor coursing through Greek territory and condenses, amplifies, and personifies them, marking its walls with its roar so that we cannot forget it. Home to students, migrants, anarchist activists, intellectuals, and artists, Exarcheia is a beating heart; now threatened by gentrification and its sidekick Airbnb, of course. Which goes to show that this story is far from finished telling itself.

Jason Todd
Programmer and filmmaker