Coral Resistance on the Cold Italian Seabed
29.11.2019
It’s eight o’clock. I’m off for a run on the beach. My legs sink into a velvety soft blanket of sand. I stop at the edge of the water and start practicing my shadowboxing. Today is the third day of shooting on this trip. “Muay Thai?” a man asks me while walking on the beach. I confirm.
It actually happened! After two years of filming, when Murch and I were travelling up and down the Balkans filming a revolt around the construction of the TAP pipeline, he finally succeeded. Murch received the first batch of funding from the Slovenian Film Center. A movie about the multi-billion euro energy project will actually happen. It will actually happen! We are a bigger team now. We are joined by photographer Grega and American producer Eric. I still do a little of everything, but fewer and fewer technical tasks and more and more content-related ones, including communication, translation, etc. This is usually the case when you work in a small film crew.
After an hour, I start to run back. The white city is empty. San Foca is a tourist resort, at the heel of the Italian boot. Eric said yesterday that wealthy people live this way. They have a summer place for themselves, a sandy beach within reach and peace. That’s what we have here these days. The houses are empty, the shutters firmly closed, the street is silent. Nothing is happening. And so much at the same time!
We meet the local activists. They show us a large yellow excavator in the middle of the sea destroying the picturesque view. Symbolic! The steel octopus has occupied the bay. It tries to suppress anyone who opposes its prosperity: arrests, restraining orders, harassment, police questioning.
“This is a military zone,” one of the locals tells us pointing at the construction site. He is right. The wire fence is at least five meters high. Inside the workers are like captives. Among them, I notice annoying security guards and police officers taking pictures of us. We shoot behind the fence at least three meters away. The undercover police officers soon come and ask what we are doing there. They leave us to continue our work. Only half an hour later, they stop us on the road, collect our documents and spend at least 20 minutes verifying them.
The authorities now also know of our presence in the region. Nevermind. The movie will now happen. It actually will!
30.11.2019
It’s seven o’clock. Murch and I are gossiping like two old ladies. We often do this. One speaks, the other listens. Today I’m listening. He is informing me about happenings at home: about the mayor of Ljubljana’s suspicious businesses, new criminal investigations covered by national TV. Grega knocks on the door — it’s time to head out. I jump up: “What about my morning run?” The boys give me 20 minutes. I decide to sprint through the surrounding streets.
The white stone pavements are slippery. I run fast. The view offshore reminds me of the reason for our visit: the yellow octopus. Activists have told us that protected corals prevented further excavation needed to build the pipeline.
“Imagine! The 45 billion euro project is stopped because an arrogant corporation believed they would be able to dig through the seabed!” they tell us. They are very happy about that. The activists failed, while the coral succeeded. For now.
We visit a 67-year-old local writer and teacher. Murch and I met him a year and a half ago when he joined farmers in Northern Greece on a hunger strike against the construction of the pipeline. A good-hearted man, he loves animals, wine and the history of resistance against fascism. I like to be in his company. His Greek is elegant. As he drives to his olive grove, he shyly confesses to me: “I have not harvested the trees this year. I published two books and had no time.”
Our film is honest, we are shooting life, scars, screams, the destruction caused by a thick metal tube penetrating the earth. The pipeline will be made. Our documentary too.
1.12.2019
It’s half past six. We have a quick coffee, get our gear ready, and head for the shoot near Brindisi. Silver dew covers fresh green grass. A local teacher and his two students come to the agreed place. They want to show us some olive groves.
“Two weeks ago, workers came and uprooted some olive trees. Some of them were thousands of years old,” the teacher tells us, visibly touched. Only the holes of freshly dug earth are evidence that trees were once there. We walk through the devastation.
In the afternoon, we meet the “local David Bowie” as Eric called him. He shows us some videos. The Greek and Italian stories of activists resisting the TAP could not be more different. The Italians want to protect the groundwater, the marine world, the traditional centuries-old olive trees. They don’t want a pipeline. In their resistance, they are critical of the Azerbaijani authorities from where the gas will come. The Greeks want to protect only certain areas. They are sending TAP’s construction contractors to the mountains: “Dig over there! Just not in our yard.”
In the evening, we shoot in the dark and damp office. We film the story of a young couple who are by law restricted from entering the San Foca area. They’re not the only ones! As many as 200 locals are in court. Among other things, they are accused of hooliganism.
The energy gas project of a great green Europe stinks. Something here in the South stinks badly.
That is why we are documenting further.
2.12.2019
It’s four o’clock. Three alarms ring at once and shake our humble summer apartment. The trip starts. Murch and Grega are in a hurry. They must continue their journey by car to Slovenia, Eric is flying to Vienna and I to Athens. They drop me off at the airport in Bari. Five hours before the flight! I drink one coffee after another. I land in Rome, again a few hours of waiting and then we fly to Athens.
What an impressive flight! We entered a blanket of white clouds exactly at sunset. A herd of puffy sheep frolicking in a vast field appears before my eyes. On the right, the sun goes down covered in a red scarf, on the left the moon is peaking through. I’m excited about the scenery. I have no one to share this joy with. Nevermind! I continue to admire it alone. I enjoy it and laugh.
3.12.2019
It’s nine o’clock. I wake up in a cold apartment. I curse the Athenian winters! Not again! Every year the same. Another apartment without heating and the cold cuts to the bone. People tell me that there are no real winters in Greece. Not true at all! The Greek winters are treacherous. Since the crisis bit into wallets, many residents are no longer paying for central heating. Apartment blocks are ice cold.
Oftentimes in the past, I would sit in front of my computer in a winter coat and hat, wrapped in a scarf. When I’m reminded of this, I get in affects mood. I head to the balcony to drink some tea and as usual, the warm sun brightens me up. I go to run and then do some work for the institute until the evening; I monitor radical users of social media. After taking some tests, the institute decided that I would be in charge of Germany, Austria, Croatia and… Slovenia.
I did not propose Slovenia myself, but focused on Germany and Austria, which besides Greece, I knew the best. The project manager herself assigned eight Slovenian Twitter users to me. “They spread hate speech and intolerance through their online activities, they intentionally polarize and use offensive rhetoric,” it was added in the description.
4.12.2019
It’s eight o’clock. The documentary team assigns me some new tasks for Berlin, where we are going in ten days. I don’t want to go back to Berlin! I spent most of my year there. It will be cold and dark. I want the sun! This time, the visit will be brief: only some interviews with persecuted activists from Azerbaijan. A total of 3 days. I’ll stay a day longer to do some interviews for my articles.
I spent the rest of the day monitoring: “When will they finally drop-dead so we will have peace?!”, “They haven’t raped every Swedish woman yet”, “Fuck their mothers, Chetniks! Someone will have to fill that country with gasoline and burn it down.”… among others comments.
5.12.2019
It’s eight o’clock. I work on monitoring all day. I wear two pairs of pants at once and Tery’s winter coat. Athens winter! During breaks, I lift weights, 16kg. This is how I heat up, and I make tea one after another.
Because of my visit to Italy, I am behind on my monitoring. Now I have to review over three thousand posts (including articles and blogs), which are increasing every hour. Since I started to work for the institute, I’ve noticed that the salve of racist, homophobic and xenophobic hatred affects me less than before. I’m used to it and I’m able to distance myself from it.
However, I am disturbed by the misleading coverage of some media outlets, or the tweets of influential media personalities. My job is, among other things, to read the responses of followers. There I run into bitter disappointment over and over again: people without any rationale believe every stupidity. I have also noticed that the targets of my observation are clearly aware of the manipulation with their followers. Not only that! They spread fake and misleading posts on purpose.
I read, report and continue to observe. I don’t change anything. I don’t have that power.
Every night, when I close down Feedly, I feel a sort of disappointment. At the end of the day, I’m just a passive observer of a hostile reality. Even the corals there on the Italian seabed are more successful!
A cold shower in the cold Athens’ winter. Brrrrrrrr!
Originally published: https://www.vecer.com/dnevnik-katja-lihtenvalner-upor-koral-na-mrzlem-italijanskem-morskem-dnu-10100568
