Lesvos my Island

The film “Lesvos, my island” is a documentary based on 39 short black and white 9.5mm films of the Pathe-Baby type, which were shot by the amateur cinematographer and entrepreuner Mitsas Kourdzis in the period 1925-27 and were recently found in a local antique shop of the town of Mytilini. The material was restored in the “Archives Cinematographiques de la France”. The film relates the story of the entrepreneurial activities and lifestyle of a prominent family in the island of Lesvos (northeastern Aegean) in the “troubled” twenties during which the war between Greece and Turkey cut the traditional relationship between the island and the Asia Minor shore, while its peripherical economy declined in favour of Piraeus. The film highlights the comings and goings of an insular society whose life was based on olive tree cultivation and whose gentry still lived with a cosmopolitan dream.