DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION

Who Was Here? – by Evi Stamou

Who Was Here? is an experimental micro-historical documentary that delves into the processing of personal archives and testimonies assisted — during different stages of the production — by artificial intelligence tools and softwares. Having trained an AI program with transcribed interviews and archival material from her father’s childhood and adolescence — a period that coincided with the rise of the Greek military junta — the director starts a conversation with the language model, as she is looking for help in her attempt to fill the gaps and inconsistencies she has detected in her family history. The unpredictable turns in their dialogue will paint in an even clearer light the fragile nature of historical truth and highlight the new threats that this notion is facing in the post-human technological age. Who Was Here? is a film about memory, the transmission of generational trauma, and microhistorical narratives in the artificial intelligence era.

Evi Stamou

Evi Stamou is an awarded documentary producer, video artist, film curator and researcher based in Athens, Greece. She studied political economy at the Athens University of Economics and Business, filmmaking at the Hellenic Cinema Television School Stavrakos, dance and somatic theatre at Studio Plefsis and she holds an MA at Cultural Informatics and Communication (specializing at Documentary Production) from the University of the Aegean. Combing her background in filmmaking and movement practices, her research-artistic projects explore the relationship between the body and technology, as well as the relationship between human and other-than-human species, aiming, at the same time, to involve bigger communities (via workshops and interactive performances) and people from different disciplines. Her works have been selected to participate in international film festivals, video art festivals and contemporary art exhibitions in Greece and abroad (Cinemed International Mediterranean Film Festival of Montpellier, Strangloscope Experimental Film, Audio & Performance International Festival, Visions du Réel International Film Festival, Venice International Experimental Art Festival, Athens Digital Arts Festival – ADAF, International Meetings of Video art and Video performance, Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival etc.), as well as in independent art spaces and galleries in Greece, the USA (New York – Chicago), Brazil, Poland, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Indonesia and China.