Greek Festival: N. Kazankaya, Oh my Smyrna, my beautiful Izmir

Smyrna, 1922: The bourgeois Vlastou family, Greeks with roots in Anatolia, are preparing to leave for Greece.

Istanbul, 2012: Ninety years on. In an alley off Pera’s main street, in the Pera Theatre, ten actors bring memories of a cosmopolitan Smyrna to life, along with its tragic end and the hopes and dreams that were consigned to the flames. Turkish and Greek songs are performed live, not as background music, but as an integral part of the play.

Athens, 2013: Nesrin Kazankaya (writer and director of the “Oh my Smyrna, my beautiful Izmir”) and Tiyatro Pera open a window on a tragic episode in our recent history, connecting the past, the present and the future.

In Turkish with Greek surtitles.