FILM SHOOTING IN OUR RAILWAY

A dual emotional scene was set up in the previous period at the historical railway stations of Velestinos and Aerinos.

On the one hand you saw the revival of one of the darkest, if not the darkest, periods in world history, with human souls marching in trainloads to destruction.

On the other hand, you understood that everyday scenes and trains that we may not fully know their value, were used for the filming of an international documentary with elements of dramatization. And that in itself says a lot...

The film "The students of Umberto Primo" follows the lives of 9 Greek and Italian Jews, students at the Italian school of the same name in the then particularly multicultural Thessaloniki, before the invasion of the German Nazis in May 1942.

Thirty people in total, crew members and actors were "incognito", due to covid, at the two historical stations of the Municipality of Riga Feraios.

The member of the production company, sound engineer and editor of the film and also a frontline person in the Museum Railway of Thessaly, Vangelis Pyrpylis, tells us about the filming took place in our area and its rich tracks.

Why were these stations chosen?

As one can easily see, there is plenty of museum material in the area with trains that would really rock if used in movies.

Filming began last year in December, in Athens, Thessaloniki and the prefecture of Ilia. The director is Alessandra Maioletti and the screenwriter is Antonio Crescenzi, who at the beginning of 2000, being a Professor at the Italian Institute of Thessaloniki, accidentally discovered some documents in his office, a report by a school student, from the wind that drifted through an open window. He was describing moments from his life. It touched him so much that he decided to start the research that led to the documentary and a few years ago to a play.

There had to be scenes with trains and landscapes that resembled the conditions at the time. Consider that Velestino hosts a Linke-Hofmann coach built in 1937, unique in all of Europe! It was used for a "simulation" of a passenger train.

And in Aerino there are the wagons with the wagons and essentially there was a representation of what the trains were like that left for Auschwitz and the other concentration camps.

Can you tell us a few things about filming in our area and the documentary?

This is an international production. The crew together with the actors reached 30 people. Actors from the theater group "Epi Skenis" of Volos also collaborated.

The film has also been financed by the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Greek-German Fund for the Future.

As for the film, it essentially deals with the lives of 9 Jewish teenagers who were students at "Umberto Primo" until the period 1941-1942. Some children were then taken to the Nazi hellholes where they died and some managed to escape.

I should also mention that ERT and Cosmote TV are co-producers.

Can you tell us a couple of words about the Museum Railway of Thessaly?

It is a voluntary group of people from all over Greece who deeply love the railway and its history.

We are trying to preserve the old lines, maintain the trains and make routes, such as Volos - Paleofarsalos, operational. Do you know how many people from abroad want to come here to take part in such a journey with such trains?

Operators should especially think about rail tourism!