In 1997, as part of an interdisciplinary research conducted by the “Friends of Music Association for the music of Thrace”, researchers, musicians and sighs from Greece visited Chernopolie, Crimea. They recorded a ceremony of “anastenaria” performed by Thracian refugees of Eastern Romulia who settled there probably around the first half of the 19th century. The last bagpiper of the community had died several years ago and noone succeeded him.The bagpipe as a sacred object hung, now “speechless”, next to the icons of Saint Constantine and Saint Helen. Listening to this new presence and music by a member of the group, causes intense emotion of ecstasy, since music is one of the main components of these festivals. This film is a unique ethnographic treasure.
Miranda Terzopoulou
Miranda Terzopoulou was born in Athens. She is a former researcher of the Hellenic Folklore Research Centre of the Academy of Athens. She has traveled a lot, getting to know many places in Greece, conducting fieldwork research and recording ethnographic data. She has studied and recorded numerous forms and aspects of Greek folklore, especially of Greek traditional music and Greek rituals, working with various ethnotical, linguistic, and religious groups, both inside and outside Greece. Apart from her rich literary work, she records sounds and moving images of whatever is necessary for her research, and has formed an important archive of rare audiovisual materials.
Sotiris Anastasiades
Sotiris Anastasiadis (1939-2006) was born in Athens. During the years of the military dictatorship in Greece, he strongly resisted the regime, he was arrested, tortured and imprisoned for a number of years. As a member of the “Society of Greek Directors” and an active unionist, he was distinguished for the battle he gave to ensure the official establishment of the profession of the film director and copyright rights. He directed a number of historical and ethnographic documentaries and systematically dealt with the audiovisual recording of folklore material from Albania, Epirus, Macedonia and Evia.