"Scavengers Union" documentary by Marina Danezi premieres on the Onassis Foundation Youtube Channel on Wednesday, May 6

Premiere: Wednesday, May 6, 21:00 (UTC +3) with Greek and English subtitles

A documentary about people with different cultures, origins, religions, who live together in peace, was but indispensable to the Onassis Foundation digital channel.

Marina Danezi’s first feature-length documentary film, “Scavengers’ Union” (2010), looks into a subject that is usually looked away: the outcast, solitary, often desperate scavengers, breaking down the stereotype of the social pity surrounding them. The film has been presented at the 13th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, at the 5th DocFest – Greek Documentary Festival of Chalkida (honorary distinction) and at the 24th Panorama of European Cinema.

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The Scavengers’ Union was founded in 1992. The financial need led them to organize, demand and finally manage to secure a fixed area where the Union’s flea market takes place every Sunday. The honorary president, the president, the secretary, the cashier, the sergeant, the members, the honorary members, a cultural mosaic, a miniature of our society, an anthropocentric documentary that makes you reconsider your values and stereotypes.

“Before we organized the union, we relied on the kindness of every officer.”

President of Scavengers Union

The film, a purely DIY production which took 2,5 years of filming, had the director’s grandmother as a source of inspiration, who in her later years lived as a scavenger in a house at Tavros, Athens. The film, dedicated to grandma Efstratia, approaches with sensitivity the stories of romantic fugitives from modern civilization, but also of people who work in difficult conditions to make a living. The constant changes of colours, images and sounds compete with the constant change of languages, since the members of the “Scavengers’ Union” come from different places. Pontic repatriates, Romani, Muslims from Komotini, art and literature lovers.