“My parents went on their first date on August 3, 1957. They went to the Moscow Circus, which was touring Athens. Unicycles, with two and three girls leaping onto the rider’s back. Magicians, fire-eaters, wild animals and animal tamers. Wild animals? Polar bears, perhaps? Felines? Elephants? Cobras swaying as they emerged from their baskets? Were there clowns? Traditional dance troupes from the vast Soviet territory?”
That’s where they kissed for the first time. Alexandros, very tall and bulky, leaned over Niki, hoping she wouldn’t pull away or turn her cheek. When she offered him her lips, he must have been flooded with triumphant joy.
I was born exactly nine years later, on August 3, 1966.
And I—like all of us, probably—am a circus myself. Constantly putting on spectacular shows, inventing acts, taming the wild animals inside me as best I can… And enjoying the spectacle even without an audience. Even when the lions and acrobats go hungry…”
Christos Chomenidis takes a deep dive into the first thirteen years of his life, from 1966 to 1979. In a Greece battered by events, suffering and rejoicing, sometimes shouting, sometimes deafeningly silent. An entire era, which—even if it seems distant—insists on conversing with the present. Images and sounds, tastes and scents, heroic and comical figures weave their stories onto the canvas of History.
“Thirteen” can be read as a continuation of “Niki.” At the same time, it stands completely on its own. And it shows us how we can create myths even when we remain absolutely faithful to reality.
