Nikos Ziogas on Death, Memory and Cinema as ‘Communal Rite’ in Thessaloniki Doc Fest Player ‘Memento’
Christopher Vourlias In the remote hamlet of Giromeri, a small village in the mountainous Epirus region of northern Greece close to the Albanian border, the declining population numbers close to 50 permanent residents. But every year the villagers gather during the Easter holidays to preserve their time-honored customs, celebrate life, and commemorate the dead, rituals that play out to an indelible soundtrack of wailing clarinets.In his lyrical documentary “Memento,” director Nikos Ziogas offers an elegy to a way of life that is fading away in his native Epirus, as well as a testament to the powerful rites that survive.