Documentarists seek romance amid economic crisis

By Anna Mazarakis

A couple who met at a political demonstration, a doctor forced to take another job as an escort and a mixed-race couple facing discrimination are just a few of the stories told in a new documentary, “Love in the Time of Crisis,” which attempts to show how the economic meltdown of the past six years has affected love in Greece.

Co-directors Theopi Skarlatos and Kostas Kallergis are journalists who have extensively covered the Greek financial crisis but eventually tired of the same stories about riots, politics and the economy. They wanted to show a different side of the crisis.

A piece of graffiti saying “Love or Nothing” in Greek and conversations with friends about their difficulties in forming a relationship and starting a family got London-based Skarlatos thinking that love was a story that needed to be told. So, with the help of a Kickstarter campaign that raised 17,582 euros, Skarlatos and Kallergis went looking for love in Greece.

“I think that’s what we were searching for: how people managed to survive the crisis, how they got through it even when they had nothing,” Skarlatos told Kathimerini English Edition. “And I think what we found was that it is love that brings friends together, families together, couples together.”

The 78-minute documentary was completed in February after about a year of production – including coming up with the idea, researching, fundraising, filming and editing. The film has had two closed screenings, one in London on June 10 and the other in Athens on July 17, it has been sent to film festivals for consideration and the directors are now in talks with distributors to have the film screened publicly in Greece, they said.

Split into five sections for the five Greek words...