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Eksandas started as a small plant and continued to grow very quickly. Here I must say that the people who supported us were not the journalists but the viewers. The majority of journalists are "embedded" with the Greek reality. There were people saying "Why would you go and deal with Argentina, which is failing as an economy. You’d better go to report on the Greeks in Astoria." They told me that this project has no future, etc.

The interest of the viewers showed the need to learn what happens outside. There were people who understood that nothing is so far away and that everything is close to us. That was our motto then, and it is the same now. Because what happens far away and it seems at first glance that it is not of our concern ultimately matters to us. In 2003, I was returning from filming a documentary in Iraq. The taxi driver who took me from the airport asked me where I was. When I told him that I came back from Iraq, his reaction was "Why do you go there? See the things that happen here." I replied that he should care because the diesel fuel in the tank of his taxi comes from Iraq and the topic affects him in a degree. So, this is how the things happened.

Tell us about your international awards.

At one point we reached the external market abroad, the big world that extends beyond the boundaries of Greece. We have seen that there was serious response to our work there. We received our first major award at the important international festival for audiovisual programs in the French city of Biarritz in February 2007. We have won the second prize there and it was a great success, because the participants are many. From that moment on, the people in Greece who had never spoke to us and thought we were "strange birds" suddenly became very friendly to us.

How do you choose the topics that you develop?

Surely, our main criterion is neither whether the topic is commercial, nor is it associated with the rating of viewing. Our main criterion is what we would like to do and what we would like to see on the screen. What we want to do and what intrigues us. We go from there. Then, we discuss whether the idea is financially feasible, and finally whether the topic concerns not only the Greek audience, but the people around the world.

I do not think about the Greek audience when I write the screenplays and direct a film. I do not think the film is only for the Greek audience, but for the world, because according to me, all active citizens in the world are interested in the same topics. This is something I have noticed in our participations in international festivals. After the screening of a film I hear the same comments I have heard from the Greek spectators. Such topics are the privatisation of natural resources, the environment pollution and the responsibility of major oil companies, etc.

I remember the film about social racism towards homosexuals in Mexico ...

We often try to break other stereotypes. Muses of Huchitan was one such film. We shot it in a small town in Mexico, where men have the first and last word. The film was first presented at the festival of documentary cinema in Thessaloniki. There were people who were affected and left the room. They were not many, but there were such. Some others watched it until the end and asked us why we addressed this issue, which they believed was not serious. I think that when a society refuses to accept and closes its eyes to issues such as sexuality, homosexuality, euthanasia and the death and continues to feed their taboos it is worth pushing to show that things are not just black or white. There are many of shades of gray around them in life and they must be gathered and presented.

It is clear that a team lies behind your work. It is not possible only one person to do all this work. How long does it take you to develop a topic?

We work nine months for each film on the average; as much as it is necessary to bear a child. There are topics on which we worked over a year and others which were developed within four months. It depends on the topic, the difficulties we face and other such factors.

Some believe that we gather in October, think, think and the topic is already ready at the end of the month. This is impossible. Only the cutting hours for each film are often over 300. Not to mention the preparation needed to enable someone to go and shoot a report in the Niger River Delta or in a peaceful country like Guatemala, the preparation for which continued for about four months.

It is all about a "roll of the dice." We do not shoot in Greece to have the luxury to go there several times, if something goes wrong. We have to be always sure that we will have a report and it will be good. We are often faced with serious problems and always cooperate with local people. At first, four people work on a topic in order to shoot a report lasting 25-30 hours and to process it back in Athens.
 
What in Greece is known as the Eksandas broadcast abroad is called a series of documentaries. People often ask me what the song at the beginning of a film was and they do not know that we compose the music of each film. I eventually think that people do not want to know how long it took us to make the film. They only care about the end product which should be good.

Moreover, I often feel that people think our work is "incompatible" with the Greek reality. In my opinion this should not be so. I believe that we do not lack anything in Greece that our colleagues abroad have, except funds, but this can not be such a serious obstacle.

Today is the International Day of Press Freedom. Do you think that journalists enjoy complete freedom in their work?