Golden Dawn: A Personal Affair

What’s in the mind of the neo-nazi next-door?

“My partner in life is a Jew, one of my sons is gay, another is an anarchist, and I am a left-wing feminist as well as a daughter of immigrants. If Golden Dawn comes to power our only problem will be which wagon they will put us on.”

A journalist is delving for years into the organization of the Greek neo-Nazi party “Golden Dawn”.

  • Angélique Kourounis
    Director
    Les Irradiés du Kazakhstan
  • Angélique Kourounis
    Writer
  • Thomas Iacobi
    Writer
  • Loukas Stamellos - OmniaTV
    Producer
    Ruins / Ερείπια
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    Aube Dorée: Une Affaire Personnelle
  • Project Type:
    Documentary
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 30 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    December 1, 2015
  • Production Budget:
    18,000 EUR
  • Country of Origin:
    Greece
  • Country of Filming:
    Greece
  • Language:
    English, French, Modern Greek (1453-)
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital HD
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Angélique Kourounis

Journalist, permanent and special correspondent in Greece and the Balkans since 1985 for the following Media:
Print:
Charlie Hebdo
La Libre Belgique
Politis
Ouest France
Les DNA Sud –Ouest
Econostrum
Radio:
Groupe Radio France (France Info, Culture, Inter)
Radio Canada
RTBF (Radio Télévision Belge francophone)
Radio Suisse Romande
TV:
LCI
CBC
RTSR
RTBF TV
Public Senat
TV5 Monde
Education
Diplômée de l’IHEI (Institut des Hautes Etudes Internationales) (Paris-Sorbonne)
Licence d’histoire et des Sciences politiques (Paris VIII)
Languages
mother tongues: French, Greek
working languages: English, Spanish
knowledge of Serb, Albanian, Turkish

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

How can a racist party that was getting less than 0.2% of the vote for years, enter parliament with 18 MPs?

How can a party that promotes violence, hate, sexism and murders amplify its reach after each pogrom?

How can Golden Dawn, when in France it could never exist – in the same way -, remain the third political power in Greece for four years?

What’s in the mind of a Goldendawner?

It’s with these questions that I began filming, at about end of 2009 to early 2010. But, the more I was getting on with the research, the more I realized that my motive was fear.

With a father-in-law and a grandmother in the Resistance, a mother-in-law that had to take off the yellow star in order to pass through enemy lines and bring back food to her family, with an uncle and an aunt that returned from Auschwitz, I was brought up with stories of the War. A world that, I was told, would never exist again.

Is it so, then?

As I gathered more and more images, I was getting the feeling that no, it isn’t like that.

I was obsessed with the men in black: “How could someone be a Goldendawner today?” I had this question every single day. To this day still, after five years of research, this question remains. I don’t have an answer. The crisis is not the only explanation. Those who choose and vote for the Golden Dawn have various, different motives.

What I know, though, is that they are extremely dangerous. Especially because few people take them seriously.

This film is not answering the questions I had and I still have. I do hope though that it is bringing into the light enough evidence for all to understand how dangerous Golden Dawn is.

Because, in the end, there’s no difference at all between Golden Dawn’s “Greece to Greeks” and the Nazi inscription “Jude” on Jews’ shops.

In both cases, society did not react.