FEATURE DOCUMENTARY FILM
PRODUCER: STELIOS TATAKIS
DIRECTORS: AGNES SKLAVOU, STELIOS TATAKIS
Award MÉMOIRE DE LA MÉDITERRANÉE - Primed 2015 Marseille / Best Documentary & Editing Award - 9th Docfest 2015 / Best Documentary Award - 1st BEYOND THE BORDERS INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL 2016
In 1914, just before the beginning of World War I, an unknown
tragedy takes place at the far oriental flanks of Europe:
subsequent to many attacks by Turkish
irregulars, the Greek population along the coast of Asia Minor
is forced to abandon their homes and property and seek refuge in
Greece.
Overshadowed by the start of the World War I, these forgotten
events still constitute a historical fact, observed and recorded
by a French archaeologist,
Félix Sartiaux who was working in the region at the time. He was
busy excavating traces of the Phoceaen civilization, having its
metropolis here, and who,
as they were expanding their trading empire, had founded many
seaports along the Mediterranean, including today’s Marseille in
the South of France.
Sartiaux witnessed the events hour by hour, recorded
testimonies, took photographs, and above all, managed to save
many lives of the expelled Greek population.
His account as well as his disappeared photos are found again in
Paris in 2005 by Art Historian Haris Yiakoumis and constitute
the main narrative arc.
This film sheds a new light on the expulsion of the Ottoman
Greeks from the Asia Minor coast in 1914 and finally reveals its
tragic proportions.
