Lia Lapithi Shukuroglou is the director of Electricity and Marinated Crushed Olives, two films that were shown as part of the Link/Unlink screening at the Rencontres Internationales festival. Electricity and Olives are “part of a series of four interconnected short films on Cyprus today, including Should I stay or should I go now? and Rabbits have no memory. Throughout the tetralogy the text oscillates between narrative politics, archive documentary, and the experimental.” -Lia Lapithi Shukuroglou

Emily Monaco: What influenced you to start filmmaking? Why did you choose to work in the realm of art cinema as opposed to mainstream cinema?

Lia Lapithi Shukuroglou: I finished art school; therefore I come from an art background. As an artist, I have always experimented with different media, and video art is another form of expression I use that is very close to short cinematic films. I do not always project my films in theatres; some become part of my various art installations.

Do you think of your films more as artistic or as political?

I believe that art is a political act in itself. My one has to do with my personal life experiences, what I experience living in this part of the world daily. I try to show this in a contemporary manner, looking for new ways to say an age-old story about partition times, territorial anxiety, war, conflict…

Your films are very centered on Cypriot culture and politics. What is your cultural/national background?

I am working on a piece now where I search my identity. When asked what I am, what do I answer, Cypriot? Greek-Cypriot? Greek? Yes, there is a schizophrenia living in partition times here, and often according to who and how much I want to be loved, or hated, I pick any of the above!

What part of this background drove you to make films about this aspect of your identity?

There is this well known saying that I find very wise, write locally, think globally. Often, with me it is for locals by locals, but then again as local as one gets, one realises that people around the world share the same anxieties, be it a Japanese about the eminent danger of earthquakes, someone from Sri Lanka on tsunamis and so forth.

With regards to Olives, and the quote you have at the end ("L'ironie..."), what was the inspiration behind this line? Could you translate it for our English-speaking readers?

The recorded history of Cyprus dates to the 9th millennium BC, since then it has been endlessly conquered by the Roman and then Byzantine Empire, the Crusaders, Knights Templar and French Lusignans, the Venetians and subsequent Ottoman rule, then given as a gift to the British colony and only since 1963 did it become independent before been again invaded and split a few years later in 1974. Crushed olives (a symbol of peace) and now “marinating” is a way to re-tell a turbulent story. Perhaps the black-humour comes from being an English colony so many years, it has infiltrated into my DNA!

Electricity makes a very strong statement about the use of this resource in Cyprus. What about this particular aspect of Cypriot politics inspired you to make a film about it?

Inspiration or ‘eruption” often come to me through inconsistent contradictory and conflicting messages that I receive living here, and it is then that I make my best works. For instance, in Electricity, is it with the other half our enemy (meaning the Turkish Military Forces) or our friends that we want to share resources, and then what is the result, the lighting of their flag with it (was in the Guinness book of records as the largest flag in the world), on what we perceive (i.e. the Electricity providers) is our Occupied mountain?!! Basically life to me is full of contradictions, we say one thing, mean another, do something else, get misunderstood…we live in a grey area.

What do you think about the inclusion of your film in a series about Link/Unlink (Lien/Delien) in this film festival? Is this idea what you had in mind when you made the films? Did you intend for them to be shown together?

Link/Unlink is Nathalie Hénon and Jean-François Rettig [festival coordinators] idea, and they put a lot of positive energy in this festival. I had shown “Should I stay or should I go now?” with them in 2005, which was a short about the opening of the Nicosia green line, and now these two are sequels to it.