Birds (or How to Be One): Babis Makridis documentary returns for 24 hours at the Onassis Channel on YouTube

A hybrid film, at the edge of documentary, fiction, and political fantasy, by cinematographer Babis Makridis, of “L” (Sundance Film Festival 2012) and “Pity” (Sundance Film Festival 2018, Best Film, Greek Film Academy 2019). A movie about what is fake and what is real, about flying and falling, the human need to fly, fear of heights, vertigo, utopia, Gods and man.

The film “The Birds or how to be one” draws its inspiration from the archetypical myth of Aristophanes’s “The Birds,” Nikos Karathanos’s production, and its participants, filming them off stage, in real spaces and natural environments—from lava fields in Iceland to the plateaus of Patagonia, and from Times Square to the Egyptian pyramids. Everything takes place in a universe of fluid “everyday” routine, among theater people, ornithologists, and pragmatic recluses who all dream of flying.

The film had its world premiere at the Voices section of the International Film Festival Rotterdam 2020 and its online premiere in Greece at the Onassis Channel on YouTube. It was then presented at top festivals around the world: Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, BelDocs (Serbia), Shanghai IFF (China), Molodist (Ukraine), New Horizons (Poland), Valencia FF (Spain), Indiecork (Ireland).