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Edited from Recent Entries on : 
Julie - 02.05.09 I may be telling you all about something you already know, but here goes. "Sfakia: A Greek Island Journey" is a new film produced by World Spirit, the organisation that runs poetry and creative writing courses in Loutro. It can be found here: I've just been given it for my birthday, and love it. It's skilfully and beautifully done, with interviews with people who live and work in Chora Sfakion and Loutro, and the photographic work is splendid. It has been great to watch it (twice) just before going to Sfakia - and will be a good companion through Sfakia-less winters to come. Erno - 02.05.09 Dear Julie, Chronia polla! And thank you for this great info. I have just ordered my DVD! Have a good trip. All the best, Erno Erno - 10.05.09 I have just finished watching the video. Very nice! If you like this place: buy it, highly recommended! The video is mainly concentrated on Loutro, and surroundings, and Sfakian life in general. Beautifully done. Time for a Chora Sfakion based documentary All the best, Erno David - 07.05.09 I've just received, and watched, my copy - beautiful film - makes me wish to be back in Sfakia again. Funny thing is that World Spirit who produce the film is based just round the corner from me here in the UK. What a small world it is! Best wishes from the UK. David W Peter - 10.05.09 Copies of the DVD are available in Chora Sfakion. Andreas Saviolis has some at his minimarket. We have just bought one... Yorgos - 19.05.09 I just watched the film and I thought that it was a nice documentary but I was disappointed because I did not pay notice at Julie’s comment that the film was “produced by World Spirit, the organisation that runs poetry and creative writing courses in Loutro” or Erno’s comment that “The video is mainly concentrated on Loutro, and surroundings, and Sfakian life in general. Time for a Chora Sfakion based documentary”. I am a Chora Sfakion fan and love the high mountains, Anopolis, Aradena, Mouri and all those other villages that still maintain what Sfakia was, and still is all about, so extra long shots of idyllic, touristy Loutro was not my view of what “The story of Sfakia” should have been. So, in agreement with Erno, I wish that one day we will have a broader Sfakia wide film, where Samaria and the Lefka Ori would feature more prominently as they always have done in the proud Sfakian history. Yamas Yorgos Julie - 19.05.09 Perhaps you should be the one to make the film you'd like to see, Yorgos. I too love Anopolis, Aradena, and the high mountains, and would also like to see such a film. I'm sorry you were disappointed, but is it entirely fair to criticise the beautifully made film that Worldspirit have produced for not being something it isn't? Greetings from Crete, everyone. Actually, I'm in Sougia now, where we're having a thunderstorm day, but a week ago today I was walking the old path over the ridge from Anopolis to Livaniana - an incredible walk. Stewart - 26.05.09 Yassas from Stewart at World Spirit - and thank you Julie, Erno, Peter, Arrow, David, Yorgos for your contributions I thought a little personal background to the film might be of interest ? I first made it to Sfakia in September 1977, no electricity in Loutro, the shower was a saucepan from a large Knossos size Cretan jar of water, and the moon rising out of the ocean was so magical......... It then became a place for me to do 'high class solitary', a place for going deeply into oneself, addressing the various life issues, for gazing deeply into the wine dark sea..... I was always working within a highly structured work regime, which meant that I got a few breaks every year, but mostly short ones, So Loutro became a place for me to 'drop off the edge of the world' - I was travelling enormously worldwide, but I could not think of a better place to get me swiftly to where I wanted to get to inside myself It was ideal for one of those one week breaks, and trips followed in 1978 /1980/ 1982 / 1984 / 1988 Then an unsusual thing happened, I decided to have a birthday party in Loutro Great occasion - 30 adults and 11 orf 12 kids showed up and I saw how great the place was from the social perspective Really, it was a bit of a shock...... So this is the background to how the Poetry & Writing Courses came about in Loutro - individual creativity within a group setting It also partly explains Yorgos's comment about the Sfakia of the mountains - if the visitors to Sfalia divide into goats & dolphins, then I am definitely a dolphin and gravtitate naturally to the sea ( In fact, for all you trail crunching types, I have a dreadful confession to make - there was one week I spent in Loutro which I always sum up by saying ' I never got above 3 meteres altitude the whole week' .... ah ! the allures of the wine dark sea.... ) Many thanks for the positive feedback on the film We are unobtrusive, mobile and low budget in the filming phase, but the editing and production is done with, now, a BBC accredited studio and with an award winning editor We were with the right outfit from the beginning of our film making journey I would say that the general stance of our films as 'cultural studies' is to paint a picture in such a way that the viewer is free to make uo their own minds about what they have seen So once a film starts its journey in the world, the viewers will make of it what they will I am very much a believer in all people thinking differently from each other and so it's absolutely natural that some people would see the Sfakia film as not the way they would see that part of the world This is to be welcomed - it would be very boring if everbody always thought the same So, the point about arrivving in Sfakia in the late 70's is that it was just as the big change to the area is beginning - mass tourism - and I had a glimpse of the place just before it arrives at what you see today This also means that the current generation of hotel and taverna proprietors are the transitional generation - the ones that have overseen that change Like it or not, the impact of tourism has surely been the most significant factor in the area in modern times ? Whilst addressing this issue, the interviews with local Sfakians go into their family stories and there are numerous references to the kinship system along the coast - family connections in Aghia Rhoumeli, Anopoli, Askifou etc etc The Daskallogiannis story also figures prominently in the film, the statue in Anopoli, the white mountains backdrop Then there are the quiet momemts in Aradena gorge, Imbros gorge etc etc....... At the end of the day, one ends up with a small disc of digital 0s and 1s that create an impression on a screen that we agree to call reality Total reality, the reality of Sfakia itself is an incomprehensibly massive concept So all one can hope to do is to somehow tap the essence of a place, with symbols, sounds, thoughts, feelings.... Such a documentary can only begin to approximate, to hint at the glorious wonder of this place.... of any place My love and best wishes to you I am just finishing off the huge New York & America 2008 film project and am unable to run the June Courses But all being well I should be running the September writing courses and should be in Loutro from mid September for 2-3 weeks....... for those who wish to chat, complain, ... be human..... Stewart World Spirit |
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