With the passage of time….
The fortresses became places of interest…
The shipwrecks became monuments….
The shelters became museums….
And the pain of war became history….
In the harbour of Leros, a sign welcomes visitors in four languages: in Greek, Italian, English and German. It was these four countries that fought in 1943, a fierce battle that is not very well known. Since then, thousands of visitors that once fought on the island, or relatives of the ones that fell, come to leave their respects.
An amazingly beautiful frontier island, Leros still guards ineffaceable signs of war within her bowls. Artillery stations lying all around its circumference, hidden inside the mountains like small autonomous states with army barracks, warehouses and shelters. All of them rigged with canons that are referred to historically as the guns of Navarone, machine guns, anti air aid cover, aerophones, giant lights and an independent fighting ability of many days.
If we can only imagine the above war setting, we can feel the tension and see Leros as the ultimate time machine. Tunnels with heavy armoured doors, hideout shelters all over the island, act like a time machine that cannot be encountered in many places.
- Direction: VASILIS MENTOGIANNIS
- Production: DETAP DODECANESSE
