Archive · Journalism & Reportage

Behind the story

Two episodes from the other side of the lens, out of his years in reporting. An arrest at the First Cemetery on the eve of Andreas Papandreou's funeral in 1996, and two months in northern Afghanistan in 2001.

On 25 June 1996, the eve of Andreas Papandreou's funeral, Argyris Dinopoulos was arrested by plain-clothes police at the First Cemetery.

It was preceded by a sharp exchange with the woman in charge of the First Cemetery, who did not want to allow the Antenna television crew to film the spot that had just been chosen by the officials of the First Cemetery for Andreas Papandreou's grave to be made — a spot they were keeping secret, but Argyris Dinopoulos had spotted them holding their consultations over the chosen point

The cameraman Giorgos Gryllis «immortalised» the arrest of Argyris Dinopoulos, although that particular television material did not in the end «play» on the station's news bulletin.

Argyris Dinopoulos was released after a short while, following an equally sharp exchange with the head of the police station to which he had been taken.

The second backstage video was shot in northern Afghanistan, in November 2001, after two months spent by Argyris Dinopoulos in the area held by the Northern Alliance, as Antenna's correspondent, covering the war of the United States against the Taliban after the attack on the twin towers.

The video was shot, alternately, by Vasilis Rozos and Marios Tsobanidis — who replaced the cameraman Kostas Liliabtis, with whom the assignment had begun — and it records their daily life in northern Afghanistan.