POLIS is the first and last documentary I shot and it was not even my idea but came from Patrick Hörl and Bavarian Television, which had planned a series of 26 films under the title "Schauplätze der Weltkulturen", in free translation «Sites – or Theatres – of the World’s Cultures». The originality of the venture, which would make it different from dozens of other travel or archaeological series was the use of native writers and directors who would shoot very personal films about the culture of their city or homeland. The editorial executive had already secured the co-operation of a German-Japanese lady director for Kyoto (and the Culture of Zen), an Egyptian director for Egypt (and the Nile Valley) and a Mexican director for Teotihuacan (City of Gods). In addition to this novelty the films would be shot on 35 mm negative film, so that the final image would have the high resolution necessary for the then new HD screens. Therefore I'd have to shoot with the new ARRI 535B camera that digitally encoded the negative for transfer – without cutting it - to video.

I liked the idea and had no other proposals, except commercials. Greek movies were sinking in the cinemas while home video had become the joy of the whole family, and I wanted to be in Athens for my own more serious reasons. Instead of the treatment I was asked to write, I went to Athens and wrote directly a very detailed script with texts and photos of locations and persons I would have in the movie, because a treatment allows a lot of discussion and since I would be the first to shoot I was afraid of becoming the "pilot" of the series. The executive editor of the channel read and approved it positively with no remarks, while my attached budget needed a lot of negotiation and cuts. Finally I signed 30 pages of contracts for script, direction, production, and a budget of 27 pages, and returned to Athens. The inadequate financing was handled with the help of STEFI Film, who provided a package of personnel and equipment services at cost. When I sent the first edited version to Munich, my principals discovered that I had included no reference to the Socratic dialectic and I realised that the specification that the series be the subjective viewpoints of the indigenous makers had been sacrificed to the needs of the TV market and the average viewer, who German humanism wants believing that Socrates swallowed the hemlock out of excessive democratic sensibility. Fortunately, my supervising editors compromised on an additional scene, of a homeless post-Socratic who descends with his student into the deep construction pit for the University Metro station to teach him Socratic dialectic and the Platonic allegory of the cave. The rest of the cultural sites in the series were shot by the native authors and directors of the Bavarian Television.