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After his pre-election campaign in Greece last week, leader of the radical left SYRIZA party Alexis Tsipras is going on an international tour.

On Saturday and Sunday, he will be in Berlin, where he will participate in the pre-election conference of the German left Die Linke party, a member of the European Left, whose candidate for President of the European Commission is the leader of the main opposition party in Greece.

Immediately afterwards, however, Alexis Tsipras will set off to Moscow. Neither the purpose nor the programme of this visit, which is of particular interest in view of the situation in Ukraine, is known so far.

The mystery surrounding the trip is reinforced by the fact that Tsipras’ closest associates avoid explaining how and why the decision about it has been taken. The doubts are due to the fact that, according to them, the schedule of SYRIZA's leader relating to the European elections is so busy that it did not allow him to take part in the first debate between the contenders for the post of President of the European Commission. In addition, it will prevent him from doing so in the next two debates as well. Obviously, they have however managed to find time to travel to Russia at a moment when the relations between Moscow and the European Union are tense due to the conflict in Ukraine. According to Tsipras’ associates, the schedule of his visit to Moscow is not yet clear and its details will be announced in the coming days.

At the same time, cinemas in Greece are about to show the documentary "Hope on the Line", a portrait of Alexis Tsipras presenting his actions as a political leader in the period from the double elections in 2012 to the closure of former state broadcaster ERT and the first congress of SYRIZA in the summer of 2013.

"This is a reportage documentary with plenty of backstage material and very little political and cinematic essence, which is uncertain in its goals." This is the assessment of film critic Christos Mitsis on athinorama.gr, an online edition about cinema, theatre, music, culture and media.

According to him, the film is a laudatory portrait of Tsipras. "The line that is mentioned in the title is nothing more than that stretched at the end of the campaign in June 2012, awaiting the winner, national saviour of our country, to cut it."

"Using the technique of the "invisible" camera as much as possible, the authors of the film, Alexandros Papanikolaou and Emily Yannoukou, who are otherwise experienced in making documentaries and television productions, represent genuine moments of the daily round of the young politician and his associates and supporters, and Tsipras himself talks about his political activity."

Photo: athinorama.gr

According to the critic, the film as a whole is not convincing in terms of its goals and it raises just superficial issues, without making the most of SYRIZA leader’s personal stories and his few non-public moments.