My Rembetika Blues: A film about love, life, and Greek Music by Mary Zournazi

My Rembetika Blues is a film about love, life, and Greek music by Mary Zournazi! An absolute pleasure to take part playing with Tatavlakeyfi in such an important film that depicts on the history and key elements of Rembetiko music!!

The film has been accepted by the San Francisco Greek Film Festival so keep an eye out for its release!!!

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Zournazi told TNH, “The Rembetika Blues is a documentary film about the power of music and what makes us human. Rembetika music or the Greek blues is a music of the streets and a music of refugees. The film explores the heart and soul of Rembetika music through peoples’ stories of love, loss, and belonging.”

With roots in Asia Minor, Zournazi noted that her family settled in Egypt following the Smyrna Catastrophe, and later moved to Australia. She said, “I became fascinated by Rembetika music because of its history and my personal relationship to the music. I am the granddaughter of refugees from the Smyrna disaster [Catastrophe] in Turkey in 1922.”

She continued, “The film tracks my grandmother’s story through images of the Smyrna disaster in 1922, and the arrival of refugees into the port of Piraeus, Greece. As the film develops, I travel back to Smyrna to capture some of the feelings and memories of this place and its history. Through the interweaving of my story with narration, interviews, and the music, this film brings together the depth of humanness of the refugee experience and the intergenerational relationships of memory and trauma.”

Zournazi noted that “my film provides a unique approach to Rembetika music and to the refugee experience by exploring the music as it continues to evolve in Greece and in the diaspora. Given this angle, this film works to bring to light the feelings, experiences, and memories of refugees through the music and its poetry. It focuses on peoples' experience across different continents around the world, to explore the fundamental human experience of forced migration and exile. To help understand the conditions and trauma of life without a home, and what it means for our identities. Weaving together the different characters and stories, the film provides a timely discussion of how music can connect us to each other and to our common humanity.”

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