INTERVIEW WITH DEMETRIS POLYMEROS
The screenwriter and actor Giorgos Tsiakkas, creator of this year’s big hit of the TV season “Agios Paisios, From Farasa to Heaven”. In the interview that follows, through the conversation with him, one can easily see that he is a man who is absolutely approachable and down-to-earth.
Let’s pick up the thread of your life from the beginning – where were you born and where did you spend your early childhood and teenage years?
I was born in Alona. A mountain village in the Troodos mountain range. I lived in nature, with people around me who, for all their material poverty, carried an enormous spiritual wealth. I feel very lucky for that. It is an event that I believe defined my later career.
How would you describe yourself as a child of that time?
I was very lively as a child, I would say. I wouldn’t leave anyone alone. I wanted to discover the world. I was trying with my imagination to travel to him. Luckily there was no internet, what am I saying, not even television, so I read a lot. Incessantly. I read everything I could find, from Little Hero, which was our favourite magazine, to Dostoevsky. That definitely helped me later on in my writing.
Really, what was the atmosphere like in your childhood and later in your teenage years?
I received a lot of love from my parents and I am grateful for that. They were ordinary people. People of the earth. They’re hardwired to it. My father said few words, but it was the law what he said. My mother was the one who ran after us the most. We were four boys so you can understand what was going on. My childhood was of course marked by the Turkish invasion. It is a great trauma that my whole generation carries with it.
Your relationship with writing starts at what age?
From a very young age I loved to create, to write stories and to listen. I lived in an environment where grandmothers still told fairy tales and my imagination ran wild. Professionally, I wrote my first screenplay in 1991. It was a comedy series on the Cyprus Radio Foundation and it was called “The Microcities”.
What inspired you to write a script with religious content?
I must tell you that this is not the first time I have written a series with spiritual content. But they have only been played on Cypriot television. In Greece many people got to know them through the internet. They are the series “Basilica”, “Talk to me” and “Blue”. Of course, to lead to these and finally to the series on St. Paisios, the presence of a holy elder who we have been blessed to have in our lives for 20 years played a decisive role. He was the man who revived us, I would say, and led us step by step into spiritual life.
What was it that made you so interested in Saint Paisios the Athonite that you decided to enter the process of writing the script about his life, his life and his miracles?
What prompted me to write about the Saint? But obviously his holy life. His love for God and his sacrificial love for every human being. One of his phrases has really shocked me. “I wish I could cut my heart into pieces and give it to people,” he had once said. That love, that sacrificial spirit is unique and I think it’s what characterizes him along with the humility and simplicity that he had.
What difficulties and peculiarities did you encounter as a writer in writing this religious series?
I think that holiness cannot be described and cannot be captured in any way. Neither in the written word, nor in the spoken word, nor in the image. Even if you live next to a saint you will not be able to convey in all its greatness the mystery of holiness. That is, how man is united from this life with God and becomes God by grace. So with this in mind, I knew from the beginning that the project would be very difficult and that I would be happy if I managed to convey at least a little bit of the life and spirit of St.Paisios.
When you started writing the script, had you already thought about and talked to the main characters of the series?
When I write it helps me to keep in mind the actor I would ideally like to play the role. That’s what I did in writing the series on St. Paisios. The process was simple. I contacted the actors, sent them the text, they read it and fortunately they all agreed to play. I would like to take this opportunity to thank them all from the bottom of my heart, because with their talent they embodied the heroes of the script in an ideal way and this was also evident from the great love with which the people embraced them.
Many thanks also to the Saint Maximos Graikos Institute for giving us the opportunity to create this series and to all my collaborators, my deserving, brilliant collaborators, who each one of them put their small or big stone to make this series a reality. I am really grateful to them.
How easy or difficult is it to write “saints’ lives” for television?
We have tried to portray his life as far as possible, because holiness cannot be captured in any way. St. Paisios is a huge spiritual figure and the fathers say that you have to be a saint to talk about a saint. I am not a saint, but I was blessed to live near a holy man for 20 years, together with my wife, Christina, and our children. Our blessed elder has regenerated us spiritually.
Do you want to tell us a few words about the second series of episodes?
As for the second round of episodes…now the hard part begins! Because now will be his only course and clearly it takes a lot of attention to how we move forward…how he dealt with illness and ultimately death. But the series will go on after his death. That’s where it ends.
Is there anything you learned through the process of creating this series, facing such a difficult task?
What I realized when I started writing about the saint was how small I was compared to his immense spiritual greatness. Thank God, I feel the same way now.
