In an era where “tradition” is often treated as something frozen in time, a new Greek documentary challenges that idea by showing it as something alive, fragile, and constantly evolving. Passing the Torch is the work of three friends from Thessaloniki who set out to capture one of the most visually and emotionally powerful folk rituals in modern Greece: the Lampadedromies of Naxos.
The film is directed by Giorgos Tsivranidis, with cinematography by Giorgis Tsamis and produced by Alexandros Goropoulos. Their story begins in the summer of 2024, when the three of them decided to bring back to Greece the skills and experience they had developed abroad, and use them to create films with a distinctive aesthetic and cultural depth. Instead of turning to grand historical narratives or romantic tourist images, they chose something far more intimate: a local ritual that exists on the margins of official history, but at the very heart of community life.
The Lampadedromies of Naxos are a torch-lit procession that takes place during the carnival period. Visually, it feels ancient. Dozens of participants move through the narrow streets holding flaming torches, filling the town with smoke, fire, rhythm and shouting. Many outsiders assume the custom is centuries old. In reality, it began only about thirty years ago, created by members of the island’s cinema club and local cultural groups who wanted to invent something communal, dramatic, and deeply participatory. This contradiction is exactly what fascinated the film’s creators.
Rather than treating the ritual as folklore in a museum sense, the documentary focuses on the people who built it. The creators of the Lampadedromies speak on camera about the first procession, the fear of accidents, the joy of collective creation and the constant threat that such grassroots traditions might disappear under pressure from commercialization or apathy. The camera follows the torches through the city, but it also lingers on faces, hands, and small gestures, revealing how tradition is made not by abstract forces, but by real, imperfect human beings.
A key part of the project is its visual language. Influenced by the photographic work of Vasilis Bakalos, one of the early chroniclers of the event, the filmmakers experimented with low-light shooting, slow motion, blurred motion effects and high shutter angles. During scouting trips to Naxos, they tested their cameras in total darkness with only torchlight as illumination, deliberately embracing grain, blur and shadow to convey the trance-like atmosphere of the ritual. The result is not a clean, distant observation, but an immersive experience that places the viewer inside the procession itself.
What makes Passing the Torch particularly compelling is its wider philosophical stance. The film argues, without preaching, that tradition is not something handed down fully formed from the past, but something that communities actively create when they feel the need for expression, unity, and shared identity. The Lampadedromies are not a fossil from antiquity, but proof that even in the modern world, people can invent rituals that feel timeless when they are born from genuine collective emotion.
The project is currently in the final stages of post-production and is being funded through a Kickstarter campaign, which has already reached around ninety percent of its target. The team plans to submit the film to the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival in 2026, as well as to other international festivals. At the same time, they are preparing a parallel YouTube channel with English-language content that will explore modern Greek folklore and social phenomena, aiming to challenge the shallow stereotypes that often dominate foreign perceptions of Greece.
Beyond this single film, the team’s ambition is larger. They see this documentary as the beginning of a long-term visual archive of contemporary Greek cultural life. Alongside Passing the Torch, they are already working on projects examining collective trauma and social memory, including a film about post-traumatic stress and public grief following the Tempi train disaster.
In a world saturated with fast, disposable visual content, Passing the Torch stands out as a patient, thoughtful attempt to preserve something fragile and real. It does not romanticize the past, nor does it invent myths. Instead, it shows how myths are born in real time: in narrow streets, in trembling hands holding fire, and in the quiet decision of a community to create meaning together.
In that sense, the film is not only about Naxos. It is about how cultures survive, not by freezing themselves, but by daring to keep creating.
