By Dimitris Dalakoglou,
Principal Investigator of infra-demos

Almost two years after its initial idea, and 16 months after the start  of fieldwork research on wind turbine industry and democracy on the island of Evia, the last film of infra-demos, titled 'Colony' by Spyros Gerousis and Dimitris Dalakoglou has been finalised and is ready to be released in a few weeks. 

During the production and the research for the three infra-demos documentary films, that deal with infrastructures and democracy in Greece, we faced various forms of harassments and threats with specific orientation. 

When something is repeated, it stops being a coincidence. Among other problems, we were subjected twice to mysterious burglaries. The first time cameras and memory cards with material were stolen. The second  burglary, occurred in the summer 2022, during this one the entire desktop computer we use for editing the film was stolen, together with the backup memory cards of the material. As it is known among film-makers, the final versions of the films are very heavy files that cannot be effectively backed up. The final edited version of the film was destroyed beyond repair the week before its final release.

This second incident was a professional job, as the apartment was broken in at a very critical moment for the entire project and as we were coordinating over the phone and private messages, sharing our worries and related information about release dates etc. The thieves, broke in while our member was asleep, stealing our expensive and sizeable film-making equipment and our invaluable material, suprispingly without waking up anyone. The incidents were reported to the Greek police with no result.  

After lots of hard work, we managed to gain back parts of the material, find equipment and re-edit this final documentary film. We did feel fear, stress, worry and desperation, but we came through these obstacles.

After five years studying  infrastructures and democracy in Greece and other European countries, we can say that  infrastructures in capitalism remain largely a profit oriented machine that does not appreciate the unblackboxing of the relationships of capitalist exploitation incorporated in their management and function. 

I have to make the statement that in the case we encounter a third burglary or any other harassment and harm, this time our final film is well backed up and all security measures for the protection of our film and our personal protection have been taken. The release of the film does not depend only on us anymore, but it will be released on the planned date, with or without us. 

infra-demos.net organised together with University of Barcelona department of Anthropology a panel in EASA biannual conference under the title 'Infrastructuring solidarity' with totally 9 papers.

The PI of infra-demos Prof. Dimitris Dalakoglou was also one of the plenary speakers of the conference in the plenary panel titled  'Shared Spaces and Common Good' where his presentation was titled 'Shared vs Commons?'