October 2019
Alexis Tsipras
Alexis Tsipras, leader of the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA), served as Prime Minister of Greece from January 2015 until July 2019. This was the first time in Greece’s history a party of the radical left came to power. Today, after his defeat by the conservative party, New Democracy, in the last national elections, he is again the Leader of the Opposition. Tsipras was first elected to the Hellenic Parliament in 2009.
Yanis Varoufakis
Yanis Varoufakis, economist and academic, served as Minister of Finance, under the administration of Alexis Tsipras, from January until July 2015 when he resigned. In March 2018, he launched the party MeRA25 with which he entered the Hellenic Parliament in July 2019.
Magda Fyssa
Magda Fyssa is the mother of anti-fascist rapper Pavlos Fyssas, who was murdered in 2013 by a member of Golden Dawn, the neo-Nazi party that had been in the parliament from 2012 to 2019. The murder of Pavlos Fyssas unleashed a string of events that led to one of the biggest trials in Greece’s modern history. Magda Fyssa, being in the courts everyday since 2015 has turned into a symbol of the anti-fascist movement.
Tzouan & Nermin
Tzouan and Nermin are a young couple of Syrian Kurds who were forced to flee from their home city Al-Hasakah in Syria to escape war. After a long and dangerous journey through Turkey they arrived in Greece in 2016. Since then, having crossed the entire country from Athens to Idomeni and back, they have finally managed to arrive in the Netherlands seeking to start a new life in a safe haven.
Zak Kostopoulos
Zak Kostopoulos, LGBTQ and HIV activist, was born in 1985. In September 21, 2018 Zak was lynched to death in broad daylight in the center of Athens. Trapped in a jewelry shop, for reasons that remain unknown, he was brutally bitten first by the owner of the shop and his neighbour and then by the police. Finally Zak succumbed to his injuries, sparking debate over society’s reflexes in addressing injustice and embracing diversity.
Nikos Kostopoulos
Nikos Kostopoulos is the brother of Zak Kostopoulos who was lynched to death in September 2018. Nikos talks about his brother’s death and the circumstances under which it occurred. He, along with a movement sparked by Zak’s death, seeks justice for his brother and shares his concern over the conservative reflexes of the society.
Dimitris Kotsonis
Dimitris Kotsonis, trainee surgeon, is a vivid example of the brain-drain that took place in Greece during the crisis. About 400,000 young people, most of them university educated, left Greece during the crisis and Dimitris was one of them. He now lives in Germany, working at a hospital in Duisburg and he has no intention to return to Greece.
Emilia Kamvisi
Emilia Kamvisi is a permanent resident of Lesbos island. She was one of the three senior women, known as the grandmothers of Lesbos, captured in 2015 by the photographic lens feeding a refugee baby. Emilia Kamvisi explains how their family’s refugee past urged them to help people seeking a safe haven in Greece.
