That day

Alternative Stage founding donor &

GNO Learning & Participation Lead Donor

Following its premiere at the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival and its entry in the Festival’s category Open Horizons, the documentary That day by Stratis Vogiatzis and Dimitris Kourtis (Caravan Project) is now coming to the Alternative Stage of the Greek National Opera.

That Day is a documentary film about a series of educational and artistic activities titled Melisma that were conducted in Northern Evia by the Greek National Opera after the catastrophic wildfires of 2021. The film aimed to explore the local land through legends and stories.

From September 2022 and for almost a year, the Learning and Participation Department of the Greek National Opera carried out a programme of educational and artistic activities for people of all ages in Northern Evia,  titled Melisma. The artistic workshops as well as the personal stories of those who took part in them were captured by the cinematic lens of Stratis Vogiatzis and Dimitris Kourtis (Caravan Project), the creators of the documentary That day. The directors kept a close eye on the creative development of the dance and music narrative Endless Land, which explores the themes of destruction and rebirth and was featured for the first time in July 2023, in Kechries, Evia. At the same time, they wandered through both the charred and revitalized terrain, walking along trails and seeking out myths and stories. They got carried away in adventurous encounters with the guardians of this land: a carpenter who rebuilds his burnt carpentry workshop, a woodcarver who carves scorched tree trunks, transforming destruction into new and peculiar forms, and a horse whisperer who converses with animals. The documentary is a filmic essay on the relationship between the human and non-human worlds, inspired by the devastating wildfires in Northern Evia, in August 2021.

The programme was funded by the Hellenic Ministry of Culture.

The presentation of That day will be preceded by the screening of a short musical film titled "Instead of talking, she is singing" directed by Alexandros Voulgaris (The Boy), with music by Dimitra Trypani and lyrics by Iro Eleni Bezou. This film was created during the “Opera Filmmakers” experiential workshop, which was first conducted by the GNO Learning & Participation Department in collaboration with the Olympia International Film Festival for Children and Young People in 2021. The workshop participants were students from the Junior High Schools of Pyrgos, Amaliada, and Vounargos.

In co-production with