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Local: Riders on the storm
Cruising on the surface of the sprawling cement crust that covers the Athenian basin, a bunch of lunatic bicycle riders reclaim public space with their environmentalist DIY style. Their guerilla films, caustic performances and adrenaline pumping rides through the city, local/Athens seed their Athens with the hopes and aspirations of a more involved youth. The crumbling city is at the mercy of those who are willing to piece together or tear down the relic of a time that has passed.
This group of people of all ages and nationalities seize the fertile moment to share a common vision of their future. Self-organizing and initiating new ways to explore public space, Local is one of many new young communities which have given-up on elected officials to look out for their interests and are no longer going to sit on the side-line. Hopefully this is the dawn of a new era where Greece's youth is more intimately involved with their environment and their community, equipping them with the weapons to survive in the difficult times to come.
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Yinka: Rhymes under Pollution
Manolis, a.k.a Olayinka or MC Yinka, as most people know him, is a Nigerian, 2nd-generation immigrant who was born and raised in Athens, Greece. His African roots, interwoven with his Greek upbringing, make Yinka a unique voice in the downtown music scene. A well-respected MC, he works with various bands ranging from ethnic fusion to jazz and pop. He also plays with dub veterans Direct Connection and has his own band, Urbanix. Recently, his neighborhood has been a battleground for tensions between a growing racist neo right-wing youth and the numerous immigrant inhabitants of the area.
With all the madness that surrounds his dilapidated neighborhood, he manages to rise up above the pollution, inspired by the things he sees, using his lyrics as weapons to fight against the discrimination that permeates his world and stand up for the rights of his people.
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The Prism GR2011 is a collective documentation of Greece the winter of 2010, a multimedia experiment exploring new formats of non-fiction narratives and multimedia journalism.
The Prism is the creation of Nikos Katsaounis and Nina-Maria Paschalidou, both documentary filmmakers, producers, and friends.
In the winter of 2010, with Greece in the midst of a financial and social meltdown, Nina and Nikos returned home after having lived abroad for many years.
Their desire was to tell the story of the tormented country they witnessed through a new type of narrative. Through a process of creative collaboration and documentation, they put together a group of 14 photojournalists and videographers, mentoring and enabling them to make the transition to a multimedia storyteller.
Here you will find the outcome of the experiment: 27 multimedia stories, as echoed through the voices of people from various walks of life that have been affected by the crisis. In this critical time, we have the capacity to share stories from different perspectives like never before. The Prism GR2011 fuses these stories together with the hope that they allow us to reflect upon who we are.
The films will be gradually uploaded every week. Later this year, a feature-length documentary film will be woven together from all the short multimedia stories in a first attempt at open-source documentary filmmaking.
Please sign up to our mailing list to get updates of when the multimedia stories are uploaded. Become a fan on our facebook page and tell your friends if you like what you see.
What do you see through the The Prism?
