‘I Dreamt I Died’ Nikos Koundouros (1926–2017)

One of the greatest contemporary Greek film directors, Nikos Koundouros, has passed away at the age of 90. Nikos Koundouros was born in Agios Nikolaos, Crete, in 1926. He studied painting and sculpture at the Athens School of Fine Arts. His first two films, ‘Magical City’ (1954) and ‘The Dragon’, established him over time as one of the most important Greek directors. He has directed 11 films, all of which have been screened and won awards at Greek and international festivals (Venice Film Festival, Berlin Film Festival, etc.). He served as president of the Greek Directors’ Association. In 1998, he published the volume "Stop Carre", featuring models, sketches, stills and photographs of the characters, sets and costumes from his films. In 2009, his autobiography was published by Ikaros, entitled I Dreamed I Died. At times writing in the first person, and at others adopting the detached perspective of an observer, the author draws on sixty years of memories and narrates the story of his life using a technique reminiscent of cinematic editing.In February 2014, he was honoured with a special plaque by the Directors’ Guild. Here is a characteristic excerpt from the book: ‘...now that I am beginning to see some kind of end, I want to say this too. I feel an almost Christian sense of forgiveness, for people and things; time, wise and relentless, imposes its own order without asking and without waiting for an answer. I bid you farewell. [...]Am I still at the beginning or at the end of my journey? I can no longer make up my own stories and resort to the easy options. To the past, to grave-digging, to the unearthing of old tombs, spellbound by the anticipated surprise, what could possibly be beneath this slab, something I know, something forgotten, something that has died for good or something that still lives hidden in a crack of the mind and waits? Ghosts everywhere. Shadow-people, once alive. And in some dark corner, there it is, something lurking, perhaps good, perhaps bad, but nothing frightens me anymore. Memory, at ease, makes everything come together in a celebration, inaccessible to others, staged just for me. I let go of one image and grasp another, which I too will leave unfinished, like the Cretan folk songs where the singers never sing the final verse, because every ending brings sadness. Loves, romances, stubbornness, expectations, friends, fears. And finally, death. The death of others and your own death. Here I end, just as I began this chronicle of life, half true and half false. Just as it suits my mind, which has learnt to weave stories and fairy tales with people and ghosts. Because my truth is mine alone, and the truths of others I, too, twist as I please, and as it suits me. It helps, too, that the haze of so many years and the treacherous memory that asks no questions, plays its own games, picks and chooses whatever it wants and casts the rest into eternal and definitive oblivion. A mysterious force decides, without asking me, without being tormented by doubts and second thoughts. But I will not forget those I loved and those who loved me. An ancient respect protects them and protects me from oblivion. ‘Live so that you may remember us,’ my mother’s words again. ‘Rest easy, mother,’ I thought then. And now I think the same. ‘Rest easy, mother.’