History, Subjectivity, and the Public Sphere in Greece: The Essay-films of Tonia Marketaki and Eva Stefani

The paper contextualizes and reflects on the essay-films John and the Street (1967) and Acropolis (2001) by prominent Greek filmmakers Tonia Marketaki (1942–1994) and Eva Stefani (b. 1964), respectively. Created at different moments in modern Greek history, the two films nonetheless address the tension between history and personal experience in the public sphere, especially as this tension marks the urban context of Athens. The analysis explores how the two films challenge hegemonic national narratives while tracing “subterranean” alternative subjectivities. It emphasizes the aesthetic practices developed by the filmmakers and examines whether these practices contribute to what Jacques Rancière has described as a possible reconfiguration of “the distribution of the sensible,” and whether they help to envision urban reality as a spatio-temporal field of ever emergent potentialities.