Seferis: The mind behind the poetry
Honors and awards are still coming for the late Nobel laureate Giorgos Seferis. At the 42nd Thessaloniki International Film Festival last November, for instance, Stelios Charalambopoulos’s documentary «Logbooks – Giorgos Seferis» (Imerologia Katastromatos – Giorgos Seferis), was honored with the State Quality Award. Produced by the Greek Film Center and Periplous, the documentary is a journey into the poetry as well as into the mind of Seferis. A tireless traveler passing through places, music, texts, films and people, Seferis brought all his experiences together in order to distill his own language, that of poetry. A man of labor and austerity, he was an arduous literary craftsman. «By whittling ourselves, that is how we write,» he used to say. Beginning on February 1, the documentary will be screened at the Trianon Filmcenter, together with another critically acclaimed film, Monica Vaxevanis’s short feature «The Dress.» Both screenings are part of a new effort orchestrated by the Greek Film Center, which is to support documentaries through its distribution system. Prior to those screenings, the public will also have an opportunity to view the documentary on Sunday, January 27. This screening will take place at noon at the Apollon Filmcenter, and will be followed by a round-table discussion with Professor Dimitris Maronitis, film director Lakis Papastathis and bibliographer Dimitris Daskalopoulos. It is also worth noting that Metaichmio Editions has undertaken the documentary’s distribution to bookstores, together with «Chronologio – Ergografia tou Giorgou Seferi 1900-1971,» a work by Maria Stasinopoulou, and also published by Metaichmio. The changeover will be practically completed within the next two weeks. The payment of monthly wages in the new currency will deliver the coup de grace, particularly in the provinces, where the pace of introduction has been slower, and the drachma will have been withdrawn. It is expected that the present rate of withdrawal (about 70 billion drachmas a day) will continue. The central bank is prepared to respond, as the quantity of euros that has been printed is 60 percent larger than the drachmas that used to be in circulation. Moreover, since mid-December, the mint has been intensively churning out coins of 1 and 2 cents. The total quantity of coins will be triple that of drachma coins.
