The Heroic Vourla of Asia Minor

Documentary, DVD, with English subtitles

“Dream today at dawn. I was in Scala in front of our house, in Mouragio. It was dark and I didn’t feel any human presence around. I watched the little boat turning back to return to the island of Agios Ioannis. It would be one or two in the afternoon, the usual time. I had an indefinite anxiety, like when you’re looking for something missing. I remember well the colors, the covered sky, the foam made by the little boat hitting the waves. The sun shining on it you could pick up and put it in your pocket.” – George Seferis

In this way, the Nobel laureate poet, George Seferis, describes the port and the city of Vourla in Asia Minor. Vourla or Vourlas, “Urla” in Turkish, was, after Smyrna, the second largest city of the Asia Minor coastline, built near the ancient Greek city of Clazomenae, east of Erythrae, of which it was the capital.

Vourla was one of the most important cities of the Greek world in the early 20th century, an economic, intellectual, and administrative center of a prosperous region with intense commercial and industrial activity and a rich cultural life. Although born and raised in Smyrna, for the poet George Seferis, only Vourla remained indelibly in memory expressing the concept of “sweet homeland…”.

The documentary examines the history of Vourla through various testimonies, enriched with rich archival and photographic material.

DIRECTOR: Irini Sarioglou

MUSIC: Giorgos Papachristoudis