Stavros PsillakisStavros Psillakis

METAXA listening to time

ΜΕΤΑΞΑ ακούγοντας το χρόνο

Feature-length documentary · 87′ · 2012

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Synopsis

Doctors, nurses and staff of the METAXA Cancer Hospital, who themselves suffer from cancer, speak about the experience of illness from a dual position: that of healer and that of patient.

From the shock of diagnosis to daily coexistence with the possibility of death, the film follows how time acquires new meaning, how life is reassembled, and how illness becomes, for some, a teacher of life.

Film credits

Genre
Feature-length documentary
Running time
87′
Year
2012
Direction – Screenplay – Sound recording
Stavros Psillakis
Based on an idea by
Nikos Karvounis
Cinematography
Kostas Palmas
Editing
Spyros Kokkas
Original music – Mixing & sound studios
Vangelis Fampas, “Massive Productions”
Production
Stavros Psillakis
Shooting locations
METAXA Cancer Hospital & private locations, 2010

Awards

  • 2nd Award for Feature-Length Film, competition programme of the 6th Chalkida Greek Documentary Festival (October 2012)

Director’s note

The experience of a serious illness, such as cancer, is in itself a powerful existential event. But when the sufferer is a doctor or a member of the nursing staff, and continues to work in the very place where they are being treated, this experience takes on additional dimensions.

At METAXA Hospital we met people who live simultaneously in the position of healer and of patient: some continue to work, some undergo treatment, some live in wait of an uncertain outcome. All of them, however, live daily with the coexistence of illness — their own and that of others.

What happens when the doctor becomes the patient, and the teacher the pupil? When the illusion of immortality collapses and time becomes flesh? In this condition, measures and standards shift, and perhaps then we discover that we owe more to poetry than to the tax office.

Full transcript

The complete transcript of the film is available in Greek. Read it on the Greek page →

Photographs

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