It took four years of research, planning and communication with some of the best intellectuals on the subject for journalist Lamprini Thoma and photographer-turned-director Nickos Ventouras to take the plunge and produce a documentary about Louis Tikas and the Ludlow Massacre with the title ‘Palikari’, a word that means ‘brave, valiant youth,’ in Greek, something that uniquely captures the qualities of the key figure in the strike.
The Ludlow Massacre may be a relatively obscure event of the early 20th century history of the labour movement, but it nonetheless played an important role in the unionisation of America in the forties and the fifties, and in the establishment of labor protection laws.
“The Ludlow Massacre and the assassination of Greek immigrant and labour leader Louis Tikas (Elias Spantidakis) is one of the decisive moments of the American labour movement. It's already an extremely important story for Americans, but for us, as Greeks, the connection is even deeper. We feel it's an event that connects, a century later, 1914’s USA to the labour and immigrant demands in 2014 Greece”, says Lamprini.
“We wanted to cover not only the history, but also the art it inspired (and it inspired a lot, from folk song to poetry) and the legacy it carries a century later. This is a story that left deep scars on the body of working America, and in our documentary you can see the memory of the event at the local and personal level, like in the story of grandpa Ambrosio Bonacquista, who left the gun he used in Ludlow as his most precious heirloom to his family, and whose great grand-daughter is now a historian specialising in the history of the era.“
It was a project they felt compelled to do ever after visiting Ludlow in 2007 to report on the Ludlow story for a Greek magazine.
“We were the first Greek journalists to visit the ghost town that once held the striking miners’ camp, and we were shown the grave of Louis Tikas by folk songwriter Frank Manning, whose father was named after Louis by his Ludlow miner grandfather. It was there we also first met David Mason, a writer and poet laureate of Colorado, who has written a wonderful book-length poem based on the events.“
As their research for the documentary progressed, they managed to talk to nearly everybody who's an expert on the matter.
“Aside from those already mentioned, we have the wonderful Zeese Papanikolas who did the original research on Tikas beginning decades ago for his book, ‘Buried Unsung’. Besides being the foremost expert on Tikas, he also was very helpful with suggesting other scholars to us and assisting our effort. There's Thomas G. Andrews, a prominent historian who has written the definitive book on the Colorado coal wars. Elliot J. Gorn, historian and author who has written about Mother Jones, a major figure in the early 20th century labour movement. And Kostis Karpozilos, who is an expert on Greek-American Radicals of the early 20th century.”
Determined to go and do the film, the difficulty in finding a sponsor to cover their expenses for the documentary didn't faze them, says Nickos.
“Modern technology has reduced the cost a lot, especially if you know how to handle video-capable photography cameras, but it still takes a significant amount of money. We maxed out credit cards, borrowed some money from a friend, and prayed that we would receive expected back-pay from our regular employers in time ― which we more or less did. So, this documentary was 100% self-funded, we paid for equipment, travel expenses, an extra assistant, etc, and also 100% DIY, as we did the research, writing, shooting, editing and sound work all by ourselves (with a little help from our friends, as the Beatles say — we even got a great original soundtrack for free, by my brother who's a classically trained musician)“.
A series of screenings of the documentary are planned for the spring period. And according to Lamprini the team is already planning their next work.
“I've worked for lots of documentaries and feature stories, from Greek TV to the BBC and Channel Four”, says Lamprini, ”and with this I felt ready to tell the world my own stories. Besides, I've already worked with Nickos for over a decade in news and travel reporting and I'm confident in what we can achieve. The best thing about it is seeing how people go out of their way to help you tell a story when they feel it's worth it, and we saw that a lot with Palikari.”.
ThePressProject is the main media sponsor for ‘Palikari’.
//www.youtube.com/embed/mgLReEWH3Lo