SCULPTED SOULS

Sculpted Souls: the onslaught of goodness

“You know, my friend, it is through trials like these that a person's soul comes out beautifully sculpted,” a former patient tells the Swiss dentist Julien Grivel, who for 26 years (1972–1998) came to Greece twice a year and treated, free of charge, the teeth of people with Hansen's disease (lepers) at the “Agia Varvara” Hospital for Infectious Diseases in Aigaleo, Attica. This long inner journey of Julien's, which helped him see the world and life differently, is recorded in the documentary SCULPTED SOULS, selected for the International Competition section of the 27th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival (6–16 March 2025). “I wasn't interested in making a film about the history of leprosy in Greece, nor in simply recording Julien's volunteer work and contribution, for all their greatness. Besides, with his book Greece, My Ithaca, his experience and his work became more widely known. What preoccupied me was the question: who is Julien, who decided to embark on this adventure in 1972, when Hansen's patients were still ‘lepers’, regarded as a public enemy, and endured a social stigma harsher than the disease itself? Who is this man who took the risk and defied so many dangers when he was only 29 and starting out on his career in Geneva? What was he searching for in caring for these patients for decades? I wanted to search for Julien the man,” explains the film's director, Stavros Psillakis.

How and when was the idea for this documentary born?

A chance event is very often what sets something important in motion. As in love. In 2022, in Elounda, at the invitation of the “Manolis Fountoulakis” Library to Matthaios Frantzeskakis, There Was No Other Way, another of our documentaries, was screened, and he asked me to come along with him. Around that time the Region of Crete had published, edited by the civil engineer Kostis Mavrikakis, the book by the Swiss dentist Julien Grivel, Greece, My Ithaca, based on his diaries and memories of 26 years of volunteer care for the lepers at the “Agia Varvara” Hospital. The book was given to me by Marina Fountoulaki, the soul of the library and niece of Manolis Fountoulakis, who was treated as a Hansen's patient at Agia Varvara and appears in SCULPTED SOULS. The book got forgotten amid so many other obligations... But Marina insisted, which is why in the film's credits I call her the “matchmaker”. A few months later the Municipality of Agia Varvara honoured the Swiss dentist for his work. He was there in person. Although it was pouring with rain – a problem when you ride a motorbike – something drove me to take the metro and finally meet him! After the presentations and the tributes came Julien's speech of thanks... The modesty and the ethos he radiated through his presence and his few words impressed me and spurred me into action. So a little later, in the foyer, I asked him whether he would like to have a coffee if he had the time and the inclination. We met the next day on the roof terrace of the Dorian Inn hotel in Omonia. We talked for three hours. We grew fond of each other, we trusted each other, and the idea of doing something together was put on the table.

Another film about leprosy, or not?

No, I wasn't interested in making yet another film about the history of leprosy in Greece. I think the subject has been covered quite enough. Nor did I want simply to record his volunteer work and contribution. I wanted to search for Julien the man.

The film, whose central figures are Julien Grivel and Manolis Fountoulakis, does not focus on Julien's act itself, for all its greatness, nor on the life of the Hansen's patients. These form the framework within which Julien's great inner journey towards his own Ithaca takes place. “In this world that keeps growing narrower”, as Seferis says, “we must seek out Man wherever he may be”, writes the editor Kostis Mavrikakis in the preface to the book, and the words are heard towards the end of the film. That is what our film aspires to do as well.

“I very often ask myself why I came here, to Athens, to the patients, to fix their teeth; why I wanted to meet the world of difference. Of course, this world of difference is striking; it unsettles the certainties I thought were final. I took the risk of not being careful. I think life must have movement...” we hear Julien say in the documentary, and I think that answers your question.

Exactly. The world of difference – that is what dissolved his certainties, what put him in a potentially life-threatening situation, while granting him enormous riches. At one point he says: “The way I lived my life is connected with the way I am growing old. And that is why, for me, it is now a harmonious choreography of old age”. Great words. We may delude ourselves that we are sticking our tongue out at death, but death is the master and it defines us. Since we are alive, though, let's enjoy it; let's live as richly as we can.

How did the title “Sculpted Souls” come about?

Julien's relationship with Uncle Manolis, as he likes to call Manolis Fountoulakis, was catalytic and decisive for the relationship he developed with Greece. At one point Uncle Manolis tells him: “You know, my friend, it is through these hardships that a person's soul is beautifully sculpted”. ... We are talking about people who – before the cure was found – lived only in the expectation of death. There was no future, there was no hope. “It was a life in which everything led to death. There was no hope. One of the laws on the island was that we should have no hope,” we hear Maurice Born say in the film about those confined on Spinalonga. And yet, in this tragically extreme situation, people walked on, found courage, did not give up on life... That was the enormous lesson Julien took away. “I met disabled people, young people without wrinkles, who had already attained great wisdom. Their lives had been shattered by a barbaric fate, and yet they remained standing...”. The film's title came from that phrase of Uncle Manolis. It was an idea – a suggestion – from my friend, the director Thodoris Papadoulakis, when he was watching material in the editing room. And it was accepted at once.

“With the waves come my chimeras. But they go away. They come and they go, with the waves. ... This is the place where I dress these moments in dreams. I feel in harmony with others, with my surroundings, with myself. This place is my safe place...” Julien muses at his favourite beach, watching the waves of the sea break.

It is a spot outside Chania, in Crete. Some important scenes of “Zorba” were filmed there too. For Julien this beach is his own safe place, the space where he feels safe and can dream. I like the place too, and I have vivid memories of it... By a devilish coincidence, although the weather had been fine and the sea calm on the previous days, when we came to shoot everything turned out just as I would have wanted. With plenty of beautiful waves...

The shoot lasted about fifteen days, in 2023. We took advantage of the fact that this was roughly how long Julien and his wife Christiane had planned to spend on holiday in Greece. Christiane, a remarkable woman and Julien's one and only companion, often went with him to Agia Varvara, and since she herself worked as a nurse in Switzerland, she became his invaluable assistant. Today they are both around 80. Filming took place in Crete and in Attica. In Crete we went to areas near Spinalonga, to Ano Elounda (Uncle Manolis's village), to other villages of patients Julien had met and cared for at Agia Varvara, to the grave of the Remountakis couple in Apidi and to the beach in Chania. We did not go onto Spinalonga itself. That was our choice. Our subject was not leprosy, and the island would have carried us away. But we see it all the way round from a small boat carrying Julien and Christiane, who talk to us. In Attica we filmed at Agia Varvara, inside and outside the Infectious Diseases Hospital, on bus journeys, on visits to the centre of Athens and elsewhere.

What remains today, at the “Agia Varvara” Hospital, of the places where the Hansen's patients were treated?

Today, part of the hospital grounds on the periphery, where Hansen's patients used to live, has been turned into a park and a children's playground. When Julien arrived in 1972, some patients lived there with their families, in makeshift shacks with vegetable gardens. The rest lived in the hospital wards. Julien found more than 400 patients. When the disease began to be brought under control, the hospital shrank, many indoor spaces closed for good and the outdoor areas were turned into a park. At the old Infectious Diseases Hospital almost everything has changed. The patients' rooms and wards, we were told, have now been converted into rooms housing people with mental illness and other special cases. We did only limited filming inside the hospital, because that is where all of Julien's work had taken place.

It is a shocking revelation that, even today, former patients remain and live forgotten inside the hospital because they have nowhere to return to.

Every time Julien comes to Athens, he visits some former patients at “Agia Varvara” who remain there because they have nowhere to return to... There are four or five of them, over 80, bearing heavy marks of the disease, who have been left there for more than 60 years. Julien's meeting with Giorgos from Samos – one of the forgotten patients – overwhelmed me. Giorgos's respect and gratitude on the one hand, and Julien's tender concern for Giorgos's health and spirits on the other, will stay indelibly with me... Fortunately I had the foresight to record some things from that visit on my mobile phone. With Giorgos's permission and consent, of course. Fortunately, because later, during the official shoot, the hospital management would not allow us to film inside because a COVID case had been detected..... But Giorgos allowed us... For the first time I saw a real leper and not a photograph of a leper! I won't dwell on it further, because my subject is not leprosy but Julien's relationship with his former patients.

The documentary also introduces us to Epaminondas Remountakis, who, on arriving at Spinalonga as a patient, organised and led many campaigns to change the conditions in which the lepers were treated, and who was the first patient Julien cared for.

Let's start with some useful historical facts. Spinalonga, as a place of confinement and isolation for “Hansen's patients”, operated from 1904 until 1957, when it closed for good. The patients, from all over Greece, were then transferred to the “Agia Varvara” Hospital for Infectious Diseases in Aigaleo, Attica. The first drugs to treat the disease appeared in our country after the war, around 1948. We should also make clear that when Julien began his treatments in 1972, Spinalonga had already closed for good. But many of his patients at “Agia Varvara” had come from there.

In 1936 Epaminondas Remountakis (1914–1978) arrived on Spinalonga. When he was diagnosed he was a third-year law student in Athens. A very important man, a legendary figure of Spinalonga who played a major role on the island in the years when the cure had not yet been found and the effects of the disease were nightmarish. When he arrived there, the lives of the other patients changed a great deal, and he achieved many things to improve living conditions there. In 1957 he too was transferred to “Agia Varvara”.

In 1972 the emblematic documentary L'ORDRE by Jean-Daniel Pollet was filmed, in collaboration with the Franco-Swiss architect Maurice Born. Born was a very important man and researcher who had worked extensively on places of confinement, and on Spinalonga in particular, since he spent long periods living in the area (also because his wife came from there). The film's title, L'ORDRE (Order), says exactly this: how society fences in and imprisons what is different, in order ultimately to restore order...

Pollet and Born filmed some scenes on Spinalonga and continued at “Agia Varvara”, where they met Epaminondas Remountakis, who, by then in a bad way, had lost his teeth and his sight. Turning to Born, half joking and half serious, he asked him whether he knew a doctor in Switzerland who could fix his teeth. Maurice got in touch with Julien in Geneva, then 29 and just starting out on his career. That “will you come and fix a leper's teeth?” went on without interruption for the next 26 years... Twice a year, during his holidays, he came, often with his wife Christiane, to “Agia Varvara”, and they cared for the lepers' teeth. The first patient he met and treated was Remountakis. He found him in a hut, with his wife Tasia always by his side, looking after him. Manolis Fountoulakis was also being treated there at the time, after a bad relapse; in fact they lived in rooms facing each other. They had a lot to do with each other. So our film enters into a dialogue with an earlier emblematic film, L'ORDRE, and indeed two short excerpts from it featuring Remountakis appear in ours, after we obtained the relevant permission and secured the rights.

Although Remountakis was living in Athens when he was diagnosed, he chose to go to Spinalonga for treatment. His sister was already a patient there. It was there that he met and married Tasia. She had come to Spinalonga at the age of 10, to be near her mother and brother, who had gone before her. At that time marriages between patients were permitted on Spinalonga, unlike at Agia Varvara. All this is described very well in Epaminondas Remountakis's autobiography EAGLE WITHOUT WINGS, which he dictated during his lifetime and which was published many years later. The grave of Epaminondas and Tasia is in Apidi, a village in the Lasithi prefecture, and we visited it with Julien and Christiane.

Lives like something out of a novel. Where did you find the excerpts of the testimony of the patient Manolis Fountoulakis, since he died many years ago?

Manolis Fountoulakis fell ill at the age of 23, in 1948, when he was a young police officer in Athens. That was when the first drugs appeared in Greece too, and so he escaped the disfigurements. He was treated briefly at Agia Varvara and fairly soon returned to social life without any marks. He married Lenio and they had a daughter, but in 1972 he suffered a very bad relapse. Shortly afterwards Julien appeared at Agia Varvara. He found Manolis working there as an orderly, and a great friendship began to grow between them, one that stayed alive until Uncle Manolis's death in 2010. In his last years Fountoulakis had made it his life's mission to fight the stigma of leprosy, which is why he spoke everywhere. He became very close to Victoria Hislop, author of the novel THE ISLAND, and to Thodoris Papadoulakis, director of the TV series of the same name. At that time Papadoulakis, for research purposes, recorded Fountoulakis speaking at length about his experience. This material, with Uncle Manolis's testimonies, was generously given to us for our film by the director and good friend Thodoris Papadoulakis. A few months earlier another friend, the anthropologist and director Silas Michalakas, had also recorded Uncle Manolis's testimonies for a documentary that was his degree project. That material was yet another generous gift to our film. And so Uncle Manolis came to be one of the central figures of our film.

Giannis Haroulis composed the film's original music and sings the song at the end. How did your paths cross?

It was a meeting about 20 years overdue. Back then, when Haroulis was just starting out, towards the end of a big concert of his at the Izzeddin Fortress in Chania, I heard him praising our film THE MAN WHO DISTURBED THE UNIVERSE and its Chania-born maker. I happened to be there by chance with our son, then five, and I was stunned. We didn't know each other, but I got hold of his phone number and a few days later I called to thank him. We had a warm conversation and promised to have a coffee soon, which never happened.

Twenty years later we find ourselves with Julien and Christiane in the workshop of his father, Manolis Haroulis, in Lakonia, in the Lasithi prefecture. They had met long before through Uncle Manolis. When the shoot is over we phone Giannis. He remembers the incident at Izzeddin, learns what we are doing there – he and Julien had in fact met at some point – and, full of enthusiasm, spontaneously offers to do the music for the film. That was that. We met many times in Athens, worked closely together at almost every stage of the editing, and I felt that we were joining forces in a very fruitful and creative way. What's more, I came to know a remarkable man with whom I now share a lovely friendship. I thank him for our collaboration. The song at the end came about by chance. It is yet another generous gift, this time from our friend, the lyricist Dimitris Papacharalambous. It was written especially for the film, after he came and watched material in the editing room. And Haroulis sings it so sensitively.

What binds you to the Swiss dentist today?

I value Julien more and more. A strong friendship binds us now. We are always stealing time to share the riches of long conversations, silences and walks. In a way we are living a choreography of old age, sealing up the cracks so that death, lying in wait and drawing ever closer, cannot slip through... He is a luminous man; he speaks more through the light his face radiates than through his words. When my friend, colleague and writer Elisavet Chronopoulou first saw him in the editing room, she kept murmuring with delight: “This is the onslaught of goodness.” In the film he speaks only Greek. “By adopting the language of the Greeks, I unconsciously adopted their way of thinking too. An inner dive into a country that gave me, and continues to give me, the ‘beautiful journey’, as the Alexandrian [Cavafy] says,” we hear him say at one point. The hesitations he sometimes has when speaking Greek turn out to be the time you need – and are thereby given – to digest what he says and let it sink in. The film is co-produced by COSMOTE TV and was made with the support of the Region of Crete and the Municipalities of Agia Varvara (Attica) and Agios Nikolaos (Crete). The promotion co-producer is Foteini Oikonomopoulou / OhMyDog Productions, and the film was produced by Matthaios Frantzeskakis / CRETAN CULTURAL ORGANIZATION. The film has been selected for the official International Competition section of the 27th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival and will be screened on Wednesday 12/3/2025 at 20:00 at the OLYMPION (Aristotelous Square) and on Thursday 13/3/2025 at 15:00 in the John Cassavetes hall, Warehouse 1, Port.