Social Innovation Associate Producer and Editor
Alexandra Siambekos is a filmmaker and 2023 graduate of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. She is a 2023 Newhouse Scholar and was awarded the Glenn Steinfast Award for Excellence in Documentary Film Production. Her 2020 fellowship at docutribe allowed her to highlight vulnerable communities impacted during COVID-19 and empower young girls to leverage filmmaking as a tool for social change. This experience sparked her interest in documentary production and was incredibly formative in her filmmaking career.
Her most recent documentary film, The Keepers of Manari, won Best Honors Professional Thesis and the Orlin Prize for Outstanding Honors Thesis of 2023. The film transports the audience to Manari, a near-abandoned village in the mountains of Arcadia, Greece. Once a large farming community, Manari is now home to only eleven people who are all in their eighties and nineties. Vaso Aggelopoulou (90) and Vaso Voutiritsas (96), lifelong friends and residents of Manari, cannot imagine living anywhere else. Vaso A. holds all the keys in the village, including those to the churches, the town hall, and the closed kafeteria (local cafe). Vaso V. is the social glue of the community and always manages to watch over her fellow choriki (villagers). Together, they are the keepers of Manari. Though Manari has been the place they have cherished for decades, today they find themselves at a difficult crossroads. Who will take care of the village after they are gone?
Manari carries personal significance for Alexandra. It is where her Papou (maternal grandfather) was born and raised before immigrating to America. Through an intimate portrait of Vaso A. and Vaso V., Alexandra hopes to bring awareness to the decline of Greek village life and document what may be some of the last voices of Manari.