Active volcanic crater makes for a hot filming location

A group of journalists joins director Eleni Alexandraki and the cast

By Iphigeneia Diamanti - Kathimerini

NISYROS – Film director Eleni Alexandraki is currently completing the shooting of her new feature film on the island of Nisyros. The film is titled “O Arsivaristas kai o Angelos” (The Weightlifter and Angelos) and a group of journalists took a windy trip to the island of the Dodecanese to watch three days of filming.

Alexandraki loves Nisyros and its people. As with her previous film, “I nostalgos” (The Woman Who Missed Home), she highlights the life of the locals as well as the volcanic island’s natural beauty, for which she trusted her director of photography Vassilis Kapsouros. For the script, she adapted and compiled three stories, Alexandros Papadiamantis’s “Foni tou drakou” (The Voice of the Dragon), Popi Karpathaki’s “Tin akri tou Aigaiou” (The Edge of the Aegean) and Caroline Thivel’s “Departs.” The story is a plot within a plot, with emotionally charged scenes. The film reaches its peak at Nissyros’s most recognizable landmark, the 4-kilometer wide crater of its active volcano.

Local Sideris Kontoyiannis plays one of the leading roles. In real life, he is the son of the volcano guard, which is also the part he plays in the movie. His nickname is “the Weightlifter.” In one of the more dramatic scenes, Angelos (played by Dimitris Bitos), the leading character who wants to film a spectacle in the crater, is seriously injured. The Weightlifter saves him and carries him on his back, despite the tense relationship between them. This has been caused by Angelos, who plays on the rumors of the Weightlifter being an illegitimate child and stirs trouble between him and his girlfriend Margarita (Klavdia Zarafonitou).

One of the highlights here is acclaimed actress Lydia Koniordou’s debut on the big screen. At a recent press conference held on the island, Koniordou talked about the things that had intrigued her, such as “the refreshing collaboration with young and amateur actors, as well as the plot within the plot.”

Journalists also had the opportunity to follow two shoots with Koniordou, one on the plains of Zacharias and the other at Piaouli in Emborio. The second was a powerful scene between Koniordou and Aspassia Kralli – both take on roles of mothers-in-law.

The cast further features Aglaia Pappa, Giorgis Tsambourakis, Dimitris Economou, Dioni Kourtaki, Michele Valley, Giorgos Tsoularis and Ermis Malkotsis. The film is a joint production by the Greek Film Center and Eleni Alexandraki, Icon-Plus, Xrated and Protassis and will be distributed by Rosebud.

The film’s original score was composed by Nikos Papazoglou, who joined the journalists for a sumptuous Saturday lunch as well as the long drinking session that continued well into the night.