Melbourne Documentary Film Festival 2026: Acropolis Cats & Other Wondrous Animals | Interview

M. Zournazi is an unassuming, yet prolific voice in liberal arts. She is a university professor, an author, a radio and podcast producer and, finally, a filmmaker. She was awarded numerous accolades for her first feature documentary Dogs of Democracy (2017) that was followed by My Rembetika Blues in 2021. This year’s Melbourne Documentary Film Festival will show a trilogy of Zournazi’s documentaries as part of a special retrospective of her work with her latest feature Acropolis Cats & Other Wondrous Animals set to have its world premiere there this July, at the Australian festival.

Although Australian, Zournazi’s filmmaking is predominantly connected to Greece where she explores her roots and what it means to be human in a non-pervasive way. In her first two documentaries, politics and activism are persistently simmering behind the main topic. In Acropolis Cats…, Zournazi steps away from the overtly political and chooses social and emotional instead. In her recognisable essayist style, she introduces the viewer with a roster of characters in every sense of the word. At times the protagonists are cats, at others, their humans.

Zournazi seamlessly connects thoughts and memories from whimsical individuals whose only seeming denominator is their love of cats (and other wondrous animals) through which the film manages to shape out a web of common ground. “Joy, restraint, grace” is what the author feels coming into contact with animals can teach us while she kindly gives a voice to an array of humble and self-effacing humans.

Finally, Acropolis Cats & Other Wondrous Animals is a study of loneliness and the distances that people go to to make a connection – be it with a cat, a pelican, a goat or a donkey. The relationships are deep and heartfelt and drive a poignant point about the connections we are capable of making with other species yet seem to be so hard to come by within our own.

We speak to the author ahead of her world premiere.

Ramona: You are a writer, a producer, a professor, a filmmaker. What themes would you say interest you most and what are you trying to explore through your work?

M.Zournazi: Some of the key themes that have absorbed me over the last twenty years or so have been around hope, and peace, and ways to think about hospitality and care between ourselves and other species on this planet.

With Acropolis Cats…, one of the starting points revolved around questions about the human capacity for tenderness as well as cruelty. As the film evolved, it became a deeper philosophical question of ‘what is wrong with our species?’.

R: Acropolis Cats & Other Wondrous Animals will be shown alongside your other films as a retrospective. What common thread do you feel runs through all three films?

Z: Yes, that is a good question. Perhaps the common thread is hope in action; in other words, how to conceive our relationships in the world that may enable more care, consideration and respect. So rather than hope as an ideal or idea, it’s about how our everyday experiences and relationships can shape how we understand and treat each other.

In Acropolis Cats…, it’s a continuation of this thread through an understanding of tenderness. How tenderness is a call to action: to take care and be responsive to what we encounter whether human or animal. I think the tenderness and care the characters in the film show towards cats and other animals can help to counteract the violence and cruelty we confront every day. That is, how we might learn some ways to become human again…

In My Rembetika Blues (the second film in my ‘Greek Trilogy) I explored how music is a way of connecting to each other and to help in times of difficulty and crisis.  

Throughout all my films, my hope is to open out some questions and observations to make the world a much more bearable place, because right now it’s sometimes hard to act in compassion and with forgiveness. But these qualities or intrinsic dispositions are starting points for any civil relationship in our world; and animals and other non-sentient life are not just after thoughts, they are central to this call to action for compassion and tenderness.

R: How did you meet and choose your protagonists?

Z: Many of the characters in the film are often very accidental – it would be through filming cats that I’d be introduced to different people and animals. In a way, the film started with cats, but then it got bigger and, in the end, it became a more global story on animals and our relationships to them and the world.

And there’s one protagonist, Markos the Pelican, who came about purely by chance: I had gone to the island of Tinos on pilgrimage in memory of my mother and where I first meet some stray cats. When I got off the ferry, and I was looking for my accommodation, I was stopped in my tracks, so to speak, by this amazing bird. I went several times to the port to hang out with him, and through a series of detective style investigations, I finally found out his story and who looked after him, and I say in my film, I’m not sure if his story is a Greek tragedy or good luck story.

R: What interaction did you find the most touching personally?

Z: That’s a hard question because all the experiences with the animals (and humans!) were so uplifting and unique. But I did fall in love with Dorothy the Cow. Her grace and presence were so awe inspiring, and she has been a mascot for the Leilani Farm Sanctury which is one of the many stories in the film. (In fact, several animals from the farm are characters including Annette-the-Cat-Streisand, and Berney the Pig!)

R: All your movies are connected to Greece. Is there something other than your origins that attracts you to the country and culture and do you find it is Greece specifically where these movies could be made.

Z: Oh yes, I think it relates specifically, of course, to my Greek heritage, and, also, there is a mythological quality and history of Greek storytelling, inherited from Homer and the Odyssey and so on. I think that the mythical qualities are so much part of this storytelling tradition and almost the physiological makeup of the Greek character … And it seems to be part of my own intuitive relationship to the country and to its histories, stories, and of course, its animals!

R: Acropolis Cats is filmed in an essayist style. Would you say this style allows you more freedom and opportunities to show sympathy in your film or is the style a necessity due to budgeting constraints?

Z: This is a great question. The film is an essay style documentary, inspired by Agnes Varda, and many of her wonderful films. It gives me the freedom to explore and enable opportunities to present a different kind of storytelling, and how stories of everyday life and experience can give us insight into profound and sometimes even more profound questions and ideas than in other mediums and forms, or in different versions of history or politics. It’s unique to cinema, that is, the ability to convey feeling and emotion, and how this can resonate so powerfully with audiences locally, but also, around the globe.

There are also many other film makers that inspire this type of film making, and I think there is an exceptional need today to tell small scale and often overlooked stories of peoples’ lives to help heal the planet (even if it’s only a small step toward that healing!)

R: What are some life lessons that you learnt during filming or through interviewing your protagonists?

Z: Interestingly, I did learn a lot from the animals about love, loyalty and friendship. One of my characters, Yiannis, who is a homeless man I met in Athens, is a guardian of stray cats. He feeds many of them and takes care of them. He has one cat, he calls Chiko, that hangs out with him and keeps him in company during the night. Chiko doesn’t make any judgement about who he is, why he has no money or why he is living on the streets.

Yiannis and the cat have a strong bond that gives me faith in the world: that love does exist, and it doesn’t always have to be in human form. It opens out a question for me, too, about what are the bonds and connections that can make us human, and what is the mystery that makes up our lives and this world, and in this film, of course, what we might learn from the mystery of cats and other wondrous animals!

R: What does filmmaking allow you to present and express that other outlets such as books or radio don’t?

Z: Film gives me the opportunity to work across a variety of mediums: music, written and spoken words, story and character; and the exploration of form — how time and action can convey the depth of our experiences, imagination and wonder. Cinema has the power to convey emotion, and it gives me, personally, the space to play and investigate the complexities of our feelings in a more distilled and accessible way. It brings together all my skills – research, writing, curiosity, and my love of movies! 

In Acropolis Cats & Other Wondrous Animals, I hope to share this passion for life and movies!

R: Thank you for your answers and good luck with your film!

This article is part of a collaboration with the Melbourne Documentary Film Festival, presented online from July 1–31, 2026, and in cinemas from July 7–19, 2026.