Документальный фильм «Кошки Акрополя» исследует человечность через заботу о бездомных животных в Греции

Mary Zournazi didn’t set out to make a film about cats. Yet the cats are impossible to ignore. She began with a far more searching question: what has happened to our capacity for tenderness? The answer led the award-winning Greek Australian filmmaker from the ancient stones of the Acropolis to the ordinary people across Greece who quietly dedicate their lives to caring for abandoned animals. Neither wholly wild nor truly domestic, the Acropolis cats occupy a space between mythology and everyday life. They sleep beneath temples once dedicated to the gods, wander centuries-old alleyways and enchant tourists and Athenians alike. To many, they are simply part of the city’s landscape. To Zournazi, they became a metaphor for displacement and the search for home. That duality has shaped almost a decade of her filmmaking. From the streets of Athens during the depths of the financial crisis in Dogs of Democracy, to the soul of My Rebetika Blues, and now Acropolis Cats & Other Wondrous Animals, each film explores Greece not as an idealised homeland, but as a living landscape of paradoxes. Her latest documentary, premiering at the Melbourne Documentary Film Festival, completes what has become an unofficial Greek trilogy that invites audiences to rethink not only Greece, but what it means to care for one another in a fractured world. From democracy and dogs to music… to cats Although the films appear very different on the surface, Zournazi sees them as connected by a single thread. “Perhaps the common thread is hope in action; in other words, how to conceive our relationships in the world that may enable more care, consideration and respect,” she tells Neos Kosmos. “It’s a continuation of this thread through an understanding of tenderness. How tenderness is a call to action: to take care and be responsive to what we encounter whether human or animal.” The people who care for Greece’s stray animals, she says, offer something increasingly rare. “The tenderness and care the characters in the film show towards cats and other animals can help to counteract the violence and cruelty we confront every day… how we might learn some ways to become human again.” Discovering Greece through film Zournazi’s journey into filmmaking began with a deeply personal return to her ancestral homeland. Born in Australia to Greek Egyptian parents, she had never visited Greece before making Dogs of Democracy, arriving during the height of the country’s financial crisis. “I wanted to visit my homeland,” she says. “Something that is deep within me, but I had never actually lived or experienced myself.” Encountering Athens’ stray dogs became an unexpected way into a much larger story. “It brought together my own history and the ability to tell a story about people, often the underbelly of society.” From there came My Rebetika Blues, and now Acropolis Cats, each exploring different expressions of resilience, displacement and hope. “Across all of them, it’s really about stories of displacement, of joy, of coming together… how you come up against all odds and still can thrive and be human.” More than a film about cats While cats fill almost every frame, Zournazi insists they are also metaphors and that as filming progressed, the documentary evolved into a broader philosophical reflection. “They’ve really been at the mercy of human cruelty and, in a way, human tenderness too. The cat film develops into a lot of deeper philosophical questions… What is wrong with our species?” She asks the hard questions but also focuses on people who themselves have experienced hardship like refugees, the homeless , the elderly and the poor who nevertheless continue caring for animals. “Even when things are really hard and difficult, there is still a light that can shine,” she stresses. That generosity, she believes, reveals something essential about humanity. A Greek story… and an Australian one For Zournazi, Greece is much more than a backdrop to a storyline. It’s the place that makes life make sense. “I’m Australian, but I’m Greek Australian… Greece is part of my experience,” she explains. She says returning to Greece for the first time felt immediately familiar while she recognises it’s a reality experiences by many in the diaspora. “From the first moment, it was like, ‘Okay, this feels so deeply connected to me,” she says, adding that “I’m also not Greek in that sense. I wasn’t brought up there… I think a lot of people experience that.” She now visits Greece several times a year whenever projects allow and hopes one day to establish a base there. Breaking stereotypes of Greekness The conversation also turned to the way Greece is often portrayed internationally, and even within diaspora communities. Rather than presenting familiar images or nostalgic stereotypes, Zournazi deliberately seeks to understand complexity. Zournazi is already preparing her first narrative feature, The Cousins, co-written with celebrated Greek Australian author Christos Tsiolkas. The Australian road movie which will include filming in Greece will follow two Greek characters – one Greek Australian and one from Greece. She is also once again collaborating with composer Konstantinos Vita, whose music has become a defining feature of all three documentaries that challenge simplified ideas of Greek identity. “The style of all the documentaries is almost like a film essay. They’re always looking at the multilayered nature of our identities and our experiences.” For her, Greekness is never static or stereotypical. “There is a real question about what it means to be Greek… it’s one aspect of identity… but it’s always evolving.” That layered understanding, she says, is central not only to her documentaries but also to the stories she hopes to continue telling. There are two screenings during the Melbourne Documentary Film Festival: - Saturday, July 11, 5pm: Meet the Filmmaker: followed by a live Q&A at Cinema Nova (380 Lygon St, Carlton) - Monday, July 13, 4pm: Greek Trilogy: “Acropolis Cats”, “Dogs of Democracy”, “My Rembetika Blues”, at Henkel Street Cinema (Factory 10/102 Henkel St, Brunswick)