Birds (or How to Be One): Babis Makridis documentary returns for 24 hours at the Onassis Channel on YouTube
From Sunday 07.02.2021 at 21:00 until Monday 08.02.2021 at 21:00
Waiting the Hellenic Film Academy awards "Iris" 2021 and the premiere in the international curated movie platform MUBI, the film "Birds (or How to Be One)" by Babis Makridis returns at the Onassis Channel on YouTube for 24 hours. Follow the manual: Become a bird in nine steps. What comes first? Break open your shell.
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).What Makridis has cobbled together is a poetic and initially utopian manifesto for self-liberation
A film by: Babis Makridis
Production Manager: Isavella Alopoudi
Cinematography: Konstantinos Koukoulios
Sound Design: Leandros Ntounis, Stefanos Efthymiou
Editing: Marios Kleftakis
Music: The Little Thieves
Original Stage Play Music: Angelos Triantafyllou
Line Producer: Amanda Livanou
With: Alexandra Aidini, Maria Diakopanagioutou, Vasiliki Driva, Nikos Karathanos, Emily Koliandri, Giannis Kotsifas, Ektor Liatsos, Christos Loulis, Grigoria Metheniti, Kostas Berikopoulos, Konstantinos Bibis, Stratos Papadakis, Aggelos Papadimitriou, Foivos Rimenas, Michalis Sarantis, Giannis Sevdikalis, Aris Servetalis, Elena Topalidou, Marisha Triantafyllidou, Haris Fragoulis, and Galini Hatzipaschali
Produced by: the Onassis Foundation, in collaboration with Neda Film
Based on: Aristophanes’ “The Birds”, in a Modern Greek adaptation by Giannis Asteris and Nikos Karathanos
World Sales: New Europe Film Sales
