The film ‘Like Stone Lions in the Shadow of Night’, a unique documentary by the award-winning Swiss film director Olivier Zissou was screened at the ANAPLASI Medical Rehabilitation Center on Friday, July 5, 2013 at 6:00. It has been described as “a testament to lyric poetry in the face of brazen propaganda”. The film was constructed around the poems and diaries written by Greek national poets Yannis Ritsos, Tasos Livaditis, and Menelaos Lountemis during their exile in Makronisos.
“The choice of this film was not accidental,” said the President of ANAPLASI, neurosurgeon Dr. Christos Georgopoulos. “Our patient Dionysis Georgatos, currently hospitalized in ANAPLASI, was an eyewitness and involved in the research of events and the archives of that era with Olivier Zissouis and his assistant, Eleni Gioti, who was also responsible for the literary research. Regarding it subject, social isolation takes many forms. This film has been given international awards on the basis that it is “a shocking testimony to the courage and spiritual strength needed to resist the dictatorship of uniform thought.” But it is worth asking oneself, what is the difference between the then “declaration of repentance” and today’s “declaration of disability”, which implies the same lack of freedom and independence, and over time, a “declaration of paralysis” in every form of social terrorism? In the everyday life of ANAPLASI, we see that it takes a lot of courage and great strength from our patients and their community to resist the indifference, the diminishing of their rights, and the marginalization that they experience.
And Dr. Georgopoulos continued, “I have repeatedly declared that disability is a social disease, a product of our disabled society. The ‘reformatory’ of Makronissos was also the result of a disabled society.”
Concluding, Dr. Georgopoulos pointed out: “The emotion instigated by this film does not lead to pessimism. Together, patients and staff of ANAPLASI engage in cultural events, such as music, theater, and cinema. With this participation, hope, will, strength, but also sociability, solidarity, militancy, and camaraderie are strengthened to claim our right to dignity and a proper quality of our life. ANAPLASI, faithful to the medico-social model it has implemented over the past 20 years, always supports the stewards of Culture, whose goal is to highlight the equal participation of members of the universal society in Life.”
