Being enthusiastic about the book «The Smyrna Quay», director and screenwriter Aggelos Kovotsos, a friend of mine, came up with the idea of making a documentary film based on it. The film's realization became possible at the beginning of 2021, when the Greek Ministry of Culture approved its financing within the framework of the Special Program for the Support of the Cinema Community for Documentary and Short Films.

The shooting commenced under difficult conditions –due to Covid– at the end of June of the same year in İzmir and was finished in the autumn in Athens. Using images of past Smyrna and today's İzmir, complemented by interviews with members of old Smyrniot families and the commentary of the book's authors, the documentary guides us nostalgically through pre-1922 Smyrna.

«The Quay», completed in February of the anniversary year 2022, premiered on 17.9.1922 and is available, with English subtitles, on Greek Cosmote History TV.

Contributors:
Directing, screenplay: Aggelos Kovotsos - Cinematography: Argyris Theos
Sound: Alexandros Sakellariou, Yorgos Demir - Music: Vangelis Fampas
Editing: Spyros Tsiftsis - Production: Popy Melliou
Scientific advisors: Achilleas Chatziconstantinou, George Poulimenos
Featuring: Peter Papi, Elli Solomonidou-Balanou, Rodney Simes,
Brian Giraud, Mark Giraud

As part of an anniversary special of the TV station SKAI for the 100 years since the Asia Minor Catastrophe, Achilleas and I were invited to participate in the first of a series of four documentary episodes, entitled «Smyrna, from Glamour to Catastrophe».

The team of Alexis Papachelas filmed also in Izmir, interviewing, among others, Giles Milton, author of «Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922», Erkan Serçe, Turkish historian and professor, and also Andrew Simes and Mark Giraud, scions of distinguished Levantine families which continue to live in Izmir.

We, in an interview we gave on 20.6.2022 at the library of the British School of Archeology in Athens, presented a picture of Smyrna as it was before the Catastrophe, based on our book «The Smyrna Quay», and we also discussed the Great Fire that destroyed the city on September 13, 1922.

The first episode of the series, the one where we participate, was aired on 12.9.2022 on Greek SKAI TV.

Trailers

The documentary