Gevi Dimitrakopoulou, This is Right: Zak, Life and After, 2020

This is Right: Zak, Life and After is a portrait of Zak Kostopoulos, a well-known queer AIDS activist who was publicly lynched to death in Athens in 2018. Zak's chosen family and community highlight Zak's activist life and the response that his murder has galvanized.

Commissioned in 2020 as part of TRANSMISSIONS, a program of six new videos considering the impact of HIV and AIDS beyond the United States.

About the artist

Gevi Dimitrakopoulou is a feminist visual artist and filmmaker based in Athens, Greece. Her films primarily focus on gender identity, sexuality, queerness and the political inequalities of minorities. She is a published media scholar writing and speaking on technology and culture. She holds degrees in economics, film studies, and digital media.

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Additional context

Zak Kostopoulos was a drag performer, a writer, and an activist. His YouTube channel contains footage of him performing, speaking about his experience as a person living with HIV, and more.

Over the last decade, far-right political groups like Golden Dawn have grown throughout Greece, openly attacking refugees, immigrants, and political activists and espousing ultranationalist beliefs. Despite this, Athens’ powerful community of queer artists and activists is thriving. Learn more in this piece by Alex King, and check out the Athens Museum of Queer Arts at amoqa.net or on Facebook.

Zak’s family commissioned the research group Forensic Architecture to investigate his killing. Read more about their research here (note: videos contain graphic violence).

Read press coverage of the Justice for Zak protest march on September 21, 2019, a year after Zak’s killing.

︎ Watch a conversation with the artists of TRANSMISSIONS