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The Prism GR2010 is a collective documentation of Greece the winter of 2010, a multimedia experiment exploring new formats of non-fiction narratives and multimedia journalism.

The Prism is the creation of Nikos Katsaounis and Nina-Maria Paschalidou, both documentary filmmakers, producers, and friends.

In the winter of 2010, with Greece in the midst of a financial and social meltdown, Nina and Nikos returned home after having lived abroad for many years.

Their desire was to tell the story of the tormented country they witnessed through a new type of narrative. Through a process of creative collaboration and documentation, they put together a group of 14 photojournalists and videographers, mentoring and enabling them to make the transition to a multimedia storyteller.

Here you will find the outcome of the experiment: 27 multimedia stories, as echoed through the voices of people from various walks of life that have been affected by the crisis. In this critical time, we have the capacity to share stories from different perspectives like never before. The Prism GR2010 fuses these stories together with the hope that they allow us to reflect upon who we are.

The films will be gradually uploaded every week. Later this year, a feature-length documentary film will be woven together from all the short multimedia stories in a first attempt at open-source documentary filmmaking.

Please sign up to our mailing list to get updates of when the multimedia stories are uploaded. Become a fan on our facebook page and tell your friends if you like what you see.

What do you see through the The Prism?

Directed & Executively Produced:
Nikos Katsaounis
Nina Maria Paschalidou

Free Smoking

Smoking is a habit that people find equally enjoyable or repulsive. In Greece it has been a "guilty pleasure" for centuries, a practice tightly connected with the country's traditions, adding perhaps a touch of orientalism.

But what happens when the E.U. decides that smoking affects not only active smokers but also passive ones? Smoking has been proved to be the cause of serious diseases, such as cancer.

A first law imposing partial bans on smoking was introduced in Greece in July 2009 but went largely unnoticed. On September 1, 2010, the ban was introduced again, fully prohibiting smoking in all public spaces. Nevertheless, in Greece, such as in Spain, a great number of restaurant/bar owners choose to ignore it, claiming not only that their business is harmed by the ban in a time of crisis, but that smoking is also a right which must not be violated.

A steamy debate has begun among smokers and non-smokers, creating only another battle that puzzles the habitants of the country, and makes laws brittle and weak.