The Oleanders

Paola, Betty, and Eva, three trans* women in their 60s on a night stroll through Athens revisit the streets and places where they started sex working at an early age, where they had fun and found love, struggled, existed, and gloriously resisted.

ΣχετικάΆρθρα

Paola, Betty and Eva are three trans* women in their 60s who have known each other for more than forty years. All three of them started making their living early in their youth as sex workers in Athens, Greece. In “The Oleanders” Betty Vakalidou, Eva Koumarianou and Paola Revenioti revisit all the different places in the city where they used to work, socialize, get harassed or arrested by the cops, fight for their rights, have fun and find love. The unapologetic, humorous, and empowering discussion of Eva, Betty and Paola is a history of Athens as well as a history of sexualities of the Mediterranean region and beyond.

Paola Revenioti is a documentarian, photographer, publisher, and trans* sex worker based in Athens, Greece. Paola is a leading figure in greek LGBTIQ+ movement and she has been active since the late 70s; she does not self-identify as an activist. Paola began publishing KRAXIMO, a trans-anarchist zine of “revolutionary homosexual expression”, in 1981. In the 90s she organized in Athens one of the first Pride events in Greece.

In the last decade Paola Revenioti has been active in the field of documentary films, dealing with historical, social, and political topics, often from the so-called margins of society. She works together with the team “Paola Team Documentaries” and she has been invited to present her work in festivals, squats, universities, and galleries in several countries.