Chatila and Reda are saving to pay for fake passports to get out of Athens. But when Reda loses their hard-earned cash to his dangerous drug addiction, Chatila hatches an extreme plan, which involves them posing as smugglers and taking hostages in an effort to get him and his best friend out of their hopeless environment before it is too late.
Cast:
Mahmood Bakri, Aram Sabbah, Mohammad Alsurafa, Αngeliki Papoulia
World premiere
56th Directors’ Fortnight – Cannes
To A Land Unknown, feature film, dcp, UK-France-Germany-the Netherlands-Greece-Qatar-Saudi Arabia-Palestine, 2024, 105′
Director
Mahdi Fleifel
Writer
Mahdi Fleifel, Fyzal Boulifa, Jason McColgan
Director of photography
Thodoris Mihopoulos, GFC
Editor
Halim Sabbagh
Production designer
Ioanna Soulele
Costume designer
Konstantina Mardiki
Music
Nadah El Sazly
Sound
Steve Bond, Martin Hernandez, Montaser Abu Alul
Hair and make-up design
Vasiliki Yolanda Kita, Chronis Tzimos
Casting
Kleopatra Ampatzoglou, Luna Muallem
Executive producers
Francois De Villers, Frank Barat, Sawsan Asfari, Elisa Van Waeyenbergen, Jawad Botmeh, Asha Mansouri Elmasry, Hassan Elmasry, Mohannad Malas
Co-producers
Maria Drandaki, Layla Meijman,Maarten van der Ven, Francois Morisset
Producers
Geoff Arbourne, Mahdi Fleifel
Produced by
Inside Out Films (UK), Nakba FilmWorks (UK)
Co-produced by
Salaud Morisset (France), Homemade Films (Greece), Studio Ruba (the Netherlands), ZDF/ARTE & ZDF/DKF, ERΤ S.A., Metafora Production, The Red Sea Fund
With the support of Greek Film Centre, NFF+HBF Co-Production Scheme, Aide Aux Cinémas du Monde – Centre National du Cinéma et de l’Image Animée, Institut Français, Doha Film Institute
Radiant Neurologist Katerina and Yannis, a former well-respected doctor, are heading off to a deserted seaside resort. Silence spreads in the car as they travel across sandy dunes in a windy autumn, matching the less-than-pleasant occasion: Yannis had been called to identify the victim of a tragic accident at the hospital of the small town. When the local policeman informs them that the victim’s vehicle had plunged over the parapet of a stone bridge and leads them to the morgue, Katerina sees her worst suspicions confirmed. Together with Yannis, but also on her own nightly excursions to a mysterious, rustic beach bar called Arcadia, they begin to put the pieces of the puzzle together, revealing a haunting story of love, loss, acceptance, and letting go.
Cast:
Vangelis Mourikis, Angeliki Papoulia, Elena Topalidou, Nikolas Papagiannis, Vangelis Evangelinos, Asteris Rimagmos, Vangelio Andreadaki, Flomaria Papadaki, Elena Mavridou, Antonis Tsiotsiopoulos, Yorgos Biniaris, Maria Diakopanagiotou, Daphné Patakia, Nikos Georgakis, Alexandros Voulgaris, Petra Kalampoka
World Premiere
74th Berlin International Film Festival – Encounters Competition
Festivals / Awards
Sofia International Film Festival 2024 (Special Screening – Out of Competition), Hong-Kong International Film Festival 2024 (Young Cinema Competition, Asian premiere – Winner: Best Actor Award for Vangelis Mourikis)
International Press
“Atmospheric. Eerie. Exquisitely wistful. Zois strikes a delicate balance between the banal facts of grief and the inventive framework of a parallel supernatural story. An intriguing metaphysical fancy.” -Wendy Ide, Screen
“A film about love, loss, the acrobatics between here and there. Like a gentle, healing breeze from another world, that comes to embrace the soul.” -Deutsche Welle
“Vangelis Mourikis and Angeliki Papoulia become the soul of this melancholic ode to love. A unique story of love that goes beyond conventions. Instead of being a mundane procedural thriller, it becomes an emotionally mature investigation of truth.” -Akash Despande, High on Films
“Almost a prime example of the Greek New Wave. Feels like a waking dream in limbo, like sleepwalking through the afterlife.” -TAZ
“Angeliki Papoulia is once again marvellous.” -Gregory Coutaut, Le Polyester
“Zois’ distinctive directorial signature is apparent for challenging and overturning genre conventions, bridging the real and the imagined. Angeliki Papoulia, the dame of indie and experimental arthouse, adds a unique depth to her portrayal of Katerina, a character navigating unfamiliar emotional and supernatural realms.” -Martin Kudlac, Screen Anarchy
Under the hot Greek sun, the animateurs at an all-inclusive island resort prepare for the busy touristic season. Kalia is the leader of the pack. Paper decors, glossy costumes and dance shows fill the stage. As summer intensifies and the work pressure builds up, their nights become violent and Kalia’s struggle is revealed in the darkness. But when the spotlights turn on again, the show must go on.
World premiere
76th Locarno International Film Festival – International Competition / Winner: Pardo for Best Performance (Dimitra Vlagopoulou)
Festivals / Awards Thessaloniki International Film Festival – International Competition 2o23 (Winner: Golden Alexander – Theo Angelopoulos for Best Film, Best Actress for Dimitra Vlagopoulou, Crew United Award), Sarajevo IFF – International Competition 2023, Viennale ’23, Haifa IFF – International Competition 2023, Seminci – Valladolid International Film Week 2023 (Winner: Special Mention of the Jury), Vancouver IFF 2023 (Winner: Vanguard Award 2023), Festival du Nouveau Cinéma de Montréal 2023, 47 Mostra Sao Paulo, Cineuropa 37 – Santiago de Compostella (Winner: Best Screenplay Award for Sofia Exarchou), Cork Film Festival 2023 (Winner: Spirit of the Festival Award – Best Film), Cinemamed – Brussels Mediterranean Film Festival 2023(Winner: Jury Special Mention, Citizens’ Jury Award, Cineuropa Prize), Les Arcs FF 2023 (Winner: Best Performance for Dimitra Vlagopoulou), Mannheim IFF 2024 (FIPRESCI Award), Göteborg International Film Festival 2024, Luxembourg IFF 2024, Sofia IFF 2024, Uruguay International Film Festival – New Directors Competition 2024 (Winner: Special Mention of the Jury), D’A Film Festival Barcelona, Istanbul IFF, etc.
Feature Film Selection 2023 – European Film Awards
International Press
“For those fortunate enough to grab their own little piece of paradise during summer vacation, the memories can seem unforgettable. But there’s another side to those sunny holidays that are rarely posted on Instagram, involving the many hotel workers who labor in the background to make everything appear perfect, at least on the surface. Paul Verhoeven’s glitter-and-guts depiction of Las Vegas definitely comes to mind in this story of a dancer, Kalia (the excellent Dimitra Vlagopoulou), who choreographs numbers and trains new recruits at a Greek resort filled with foreign tourists. She constantly reminds her team to smile at the guests, and yet when she’s off the clock, Kalia’s growing existential crisis takes center stage.” -Jordan Mintzer, The Hollywood Reporter
“Dimitra Vlagopoulou gives a knockout performance in Sofia Exarchou’s resort-set second feature about a group of seasonal performers. Her performance here is truly something to behold. She takes us through her character’s emotional peaks and troughs with raw intensity and naturalism – coupled with expert editing and sound design, Exarchou proves that a film with a configuration as simple as this can reach a whole new dimension of emotional resonance.” -Marina Ashioti, Little White Lies
**** – “The director succeeds in attaching us to this woman, confronted with the dizziness of her existence, while constantly connecting her to the rest of the gang. Because it is from the group that the energy, the self-deprecation, the laughter are born, during rehearsals or after the shows…” -Clarisse Fabre, Le Monde
**** – “Through the portrait of the skinned and luminous Kalia, the filmmaker’s interest in the sublimated and martyred bodies of her characters, driven by self-destructive impulses and a desire to shine on all scenes, be they paltry.” -Thierry Méranger, Cahiers du Cinéma
*** – “Exhilaratingly realistic, the almost documentary approach of Sophia Exarchou (whom we discovered in the summer of 2020 with her first feature film Park, appreciated in these columns) transcribes female pain as a collective experience with disturbing veracity.” -Lucie Chiquer, Première
“Exarchou takes a documentary approach to the action, Monika Lenczewska’s camera getting close enough to see the straining muscles and effort being put into all this forced hedonism. Vlagopoulou’s performance has a raw intensity that you don’t dare question, less still look away from.” -Amber Wilkinson, Eye for Film
“To counter this abstraction, the film adopts a corporeal aesthetic, where the camerawork byMonika Lenczewska exists as an entity in its own right. The camera lurks, curious; it roams and tracks the protagonist through her nightly escapades, resting for a minute to linger on her bruised body, naked in the shower. Exarchou makes a poignant point about the nature of labour, just by returning to the same events — shows and showers, among others — to show that the female body has always carried the marks of invisible labour. And that this labour has only been appreciated when made invisible. A heartbreaking rendition of Baccara’s 70s hit Yes Sir, I Can Boogie is another motif, returning to haunt the film’s melancholy ending and confirm Animal as a profoundly moving work with a subtle political message to match its aesthetic accomplishments.” -Savina Petkova, Cineuropa
“This excellent competition entry film brims with sociological detail, touristic critique and intense character study, truly counting the cost of the holiday entertainment complex on the all-smiling, all-singing, all-laughing crew. Anchored by a gripping, fully-alive, three-dimensional performance by Dimitra Vlagopoulou as head animateur Kalia — the type of work that seems to dictate the tone of the film as opposed to the other way around —Exarchou’s sophomore feature is a standout work that cuts straight for the heart, one insanely cheesy song at a time.” -Redmond Bacon, Journey into Cinema
Co-produced by
Nabis Filmgroup, Digital Cube, Felony, Ars OOD, ERT S.A., Arctos Films S.A., Sofia Exarchou in collaboration with Wild at Heart
With the support of
Eurimages, Media Creative Europe, Greek Film Centre, Austrian Film Institute, Vienna Film Fund, Salzburg City Film Fund, Centrul National al Cinematografiei, Mediacom, Bulgarian Film Center, Cyprus Deputy Ministry of Culture, ΕΚΟΜΕ, Region of Crete.
Distribution
17 Jan. 24 France (Shellac), 8 Feb. 24 Greece (Weird Wave), Austria (FILMGARTEN)
A small-town labour union turns to the dark arts for empowerment against the corrupt forces in their community in Mladen Đorđević’s timely and disturbing socio-horror satire.
Cast
Tamara Krcunović, Leon Lučev, Momo Pićurić, Ivan Djordjević, Szilvia Kriszan, Mirsad Tuka, Lidija Kordić, Tomislav Trifunović, Olivera Viktorović, Stefan Sterev.
World Premiere
Toronto IFF 2023 – Midnight Madness
Festivals / Awards
Tallinn Black Nights 2023, Beograd IFF 2024 (Best Director Award – Main Competition Jury, Best Film of the Region Critics’ Prize, Best Euro-Mediterranean Film Critics’ Prize), Sofia IFF 2024
Wold press
“A thoughtful effort from Djordjevic that finds its satisfying catharsis in the unlikeliest of places”.” -Kevin Jagernaught, The Film Verdict
“A riveting political horror feature that deftly balances social commentary with occult chills..” -Joseph Perry, Scariest Things
“A master class in escalation”.” -Kurt Halfyard, Screen Anarchy
Radnička klasa ide u pakao, 127min. Serbia-Bulgaria-Greece-Montenegro-Romania
Director
Mladen Đorđević
Writer
Mladen Đorđević
Director of photography
Dušan Grubin
Production Designer
Zorana Petrov
Costume designer
Jelena Djordjevic
Hair, make-up, SFX make-up designers
Evi Zafiropoulou, Petros Kondylis
Producers
Milan Stojanovič, Mladen Đorđević
Co-producers
Martichka Bozhilova, Maria Drandaki , Ivan Marinović, Anamaria Antoci
Produced by
Sense Production, Corona Film, Agitprop, Homemade Films, Adriatic Western, Tangaj Production.
Supported by
Film Center Serbia, Bulgarian National Film Center, Greek Film Centre, ERT S.A., Film Centre Montenegro, Eurimages.
A man and a woman, Aris and Anna, meet in a dream-like coastal town. The town is full of antennas, which emit the voices of the Vanished Ones, inhabitants of the town that have suddenly and inexplicably disappeared. As we watch the daily life and the bizarre rituals of the inhabitants, rituals devoted to the lost ones, Anna and Aris fall in love. A few days later, Anna suddenly disappears.
Cast
Angeliki Papoulia, Christos Passalis, Sofia Kokkali, Maria Skoula, Marisha Triantafyllidou, Thanassis Dimou, Rania Ikonomidou, Vassilis Karaboulas, Aris Armaganidis
World premiere
56th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival – International Competition
Festivals / Awards
63rd Thessaloniki International Film Festival 2022 – International Competition, Linea d’ Ombra 2022 (Best Film Award), Goa International Film Festival, International Film Festival of Kerala, Crossing Europe 2023 (Competition), SEEFest (Best Cinematography Award – Giorgos Karvelas), Cinequest Film and VR Festival 2023, Southeast European Film Festival 2023, the Greek Film Festival in Berlin 2023, Cyprus Film Days, Greek Film Festival Australia, 6 Hellenic Film Academy Awards Nominations 2023 – Best First Film Director, Supporting Role Actress (Marisha Triantafyllidou), Cinematography, Production Design, Sound, Hair and Make-up Design
World press
“An enigmatic, allegorical, slow-burn romance that wonders if love can live in limbo. Director-star Christos Passalis delivers an absorbing, surreal, retro- futurist love story in his beautifully crafted solo debut.” -Jessica Kiang, Variety
“A smooth blend of style, substance, emotion and provocation that leaves the viewer with plenty to ruminate on.” -Marko Sotjiljkovic, Cineuropa
“Passalis, who also plays the male lead here, has a long history in experimental theatre, which informs this sustained exercise in mournful absurdism, with its undertones of Beckett, Ionesco and David Lynch. The most uncompromising contender playing in the main Crystal Globe competition at Karlovy Vary film festival this week, Silence 6-9 is emphatically art-house in style, but still a boldly original work with potential cult appeal.” -Stephen Dalton, The Film Verdict
“Passalis, its director of photography Giorgos Karvelas and its decorator Márton Ágh manage to create a curious scenery of SF, an apocalyptic place, breathless. The visual atmosphere is one of the successes of this aesthetically coherent and inspired film” -Nicolas Bardot, Le Polyester
The untold story of the life and perils of the Jewish community of Thessaloniki, in six chapters. The past and the present of a city, meet and converge at its cracks.
Cast
Vassilis Kanakis, Alexandros Vardaxoglou, Angeliki Papoulia, Argyris Xafis, Niki Papandreou, Vassilis Karaboulas, Themis Bazaka, Maria Filini, Laertis Malkotsis, Fritz Fenne, Jakob Leo Stark, Marisha Triantafyllidou, Fidel Talaboukas, Aris Armaganidis, Zoi Sigalou, Marina Siotou, Danai Primali, Andronikos Christaras, Michalis Kimonas, Vasia Bakakou, Nikos Chortarias, Andreas Stavrakakis, etc.
Η Πόλη και η Πόλη | Ι Póli ke i Póli, feature film, dcp, 87′, Greece
World premiere
72nd Berlin International Film Festival – Encounters Competition
Festivals / Awards
New Directors New Films 2022 – MoMA and Film at Lincoln Center (North-American premiere), 24th TDF – Thessaloniki Documentary Festival – Special Screenings – Out of Competition, JxJ – Washington Jewish Film and Music Festival 2022, Crossing Europe – Linz 2022, LAGFF 2022, Dokufest Prizren 2022, Zerkalo IFF 2022, Linea d’Ombra IFF 2022, Miami Jewish Film Festival 2023, etc., 2 Hellenic Film Academy Awards Nominations 2023 – Best Documentary, Best Costume Design
World press
“An absorbing and appropriately disturbing indictment of man’s inhumanity to man. (…) A heartfelt, sorrowful and elegiac love-letter to Thessaloniki, which before the Second World War was a dazzlingly polyglot cosmopolis.” -Neil Young, Screen Daily
“The genius in The City and the City is the seemingly nonchalant and subtle amalgamation of the past and the present. The two cities in the name of the film refer to one singular Thessaloniki. It is the time that creates the duality, and not the space.Passalis and Tzoumerkas employ an ingenious technique here.” -Suvo Pyne, High on Films
“***** – The creative choices employed by co-directors Syllas Tzoumerkas and Christos Passalis have led to a non-traditional war film that feels quite radical in the most beguiling way.” -Oliver Johnston, The Upcoming
“**** – A brutal reimagining of true events that befell the Jews of Thessaloniki will shock you with cruelty, while also hypnotising you with beauty. (…) An incredibly humanistic film that covers a difficult subject, but does so with great respect, ambition, and a whole lot of beauty.” -John McDonald, Dirty Movies
“****1/2 – Cinematically brilliant and thematically relevant” -Meredith Taylor, FilmUforia
“A stylistically eclectic mix of documentary, fiction and essay united by its topic: the extermination of the Jewish population of Thessaloniki. The City and the City is really about the geography of memory and even more about the Thessaloniki of today than that of the past.” -Vladan Petković, Cineuropa
“7/10 – Christos Passalis and Syllas Tzoumerkas spotlight the seldom-told story of how a city that had been multicultural since ancient times had its Jewish population all but eradicated almost instantly. (…) No punches are pulled.” -Bradley Gibson, Film Threat
“*** – In this unsettling mea culpa, the Jewish community’s loss and fear are palpable.” -Alex Goldstein, One Room With A View
“Alternating between staging, re-enactment and documentation, The City and the City reviews impressively the story of the Jewish community of Thessaloniki.” -Thomas Hummitzsch, Intellectures (DE)
“A fragmented ode to the city of Thessaloniki. Only the city as a collective entity bears witness to the full extent of what happened, spilling over onto the present and generating a sense of urban memory and sorrow.” -Tommaso Tocci, Montages International Edition
With the collaboration of
Thessaloniki International Film Festival
With the support of
Stavros Niarchos Foundation (ISN), Claims Conference, Deutsch-Griechischen Zukunftsfonds, Rosa Luxembourg Stiftung, EKOME, Cultural Centre of the Region of Central Macedonia, MOMus, Greek Film Centre, Jewish Community of Thessaloniki
and the collaboration of
City of Athens Film Office, Municipality of Thessaloniki, Municipality of Thermaikos
Marisa, a retired doctor who is dying to have grandchildren, decides to travel to a refugee camp, where the children need, in her opinion, people exactly like her.
Cast
Carmen Machi, Itsaso Arana, Dèlia Brufau, Johan Levi, Arnau Comas, Henrietta Rauth, Yannis Tsortekis
La Voluntaria, feature film, dcp, 99′, Spain-Greece
World premiere
25 Festival de Málaga
Festivals / Awards
D’A Film Festival – Barcelona, HUMANS Fest, Cinemaspagna | Spanish Film Festival in Italy, Edinburgh Spanish Film Festival, Amsterdam Spanish Film Festival, Catholic Film Festival, Made by Women International Film Festival, Thessaloniki IFF
Suze and her Estonian husband moved from Amsterdam to a small island in the Netherlands. They now live a warm-hearted, slow-paced life with their bubbly six-year-old daughter. Until the day, Suze’s colorful, extravagant mother Helena pays them a visit after a long radio silence. When Helena informs Suze about the tumor in her head, Suze decides to start travel back and forth to the city to help her. Being a theatre actress all her life, Helena knows how to sweetly manipulate her daughter into her reliance. Suze seems powerless to this force and slowly relapses into compulsive behavior. Torn between her mother and her daughter, Suze’s disorder swiftly gets worse and forces her to make an emotional but liberating choice.
Cast
Hanna Van Vliet, Elsie de Brauw, Elin Koleci, Simeoni Sundja, Jade Olieberg
Festivals/Awards
Ghent Film Fest 2021, Thessaloniki IFF, Tallinn Black Nights IFF, Best Greek Minority Co-production nomination – Hellenic Film Academy Awards 2022
Drijfzand, feature film, 113′, DCP, color, The Netherlands-Estonia-Greece
In a small eel-farming town in the west of Greece, two women live solitary lives while dreaming of getting away. Elisabeth is a once-ambitious policewoman forced to relocate from Athens ten years ago and now living a joyless, hung-over life; Rita is the quiet, mysterious sister of a lounge singer in the local disco. When a sudden death upsets the town and turns the local community upside-down, the two women who had been ignoring each other’s existence begin drifting towards each other. As the secrets hidden in the swamps begin to surface, they will have a chance to become each other’s saviours.
World Premiere
69th Berlin International Film Festival 2019 – Panorama
Festivals / Awards
Karlovy Vary IFF 2019, BFI London IFF 2019 – Dare, BiFan 2019 – Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (International Competition), FANTASIA International Film Festival 2019, Festival International du Film Policier de Beaune 2019 – Sang Neuf Competition, Istanbul IFF 2019, Crossing Europe EFF 2019, Transilvania IFF 2019, Bildrausch Filmfest Basel – Cutting Edge International Competition 2019, New Horizons IFF 2019, São Paulo IFF 2019, Ayvalik IFF, Haifa IFF, Bogota IFF, Thessaloniki IFF, Roma MedFesti 2019, Zagreb IFF 2019, Valencia IMFF 2019, Denver IFF, etc.
2 Hellenic Film Academy Awards (Best Director, Best Actress) and 12 nominations (Best Film, Screenplay, Actor, Supporting Actress, Editing, Costume Design, Music, Sound, Make-up, Effects).
World Press
“The latest film from Greek director Syllas Tzoumerkas stars Angeliki Papoulia in one of her best roles yet. Tzoumerkas does masterfully paint the stifling atmosphere of a godforsaken town where women’s dreams and potential have come to die. With a score that ventures into thriller territory, menacing zooms and eerily calm overheads shots, the film evokes a place that looks like a swamp ready to slowly engulf everything that comes near it.” -Boyd van Hoeij, The Hollywood Reporter
“A Blast director Syllas Tzoumerkas returns with an agitated, atmospheric and sometimes confounding exercise in modern Greek tragedy. Tzoumerkas’ latest invites comparisons to the loopier, trash-skirting genre outings of Herzog or Lynch, with the gradual unpeeling of layered madness and corruption in the sleepy working town of Missolonghi occasionally calling to mind an aggressively sunburned “Twin Peaks’”. -Guy Lodge, Variety
“*** A Lynchian psychodrama in the sun[…] A drumbeat of anxiety and impending violence thuds insistently from this opaque, disquieting spectacle from Greek film-maker Syllas Tzoumerkas”. -Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
“***** While the film is saturated with Biblical quotes, icons of saints, and church choir songs, its form attends equally to the lowly human, animal, and nature. Pacifying all forms of life under the flag of future deliverance, the promise that each being will attain their most perfect form and self, The Miracle of the Sargasso Sea provides a convergence between religious submission and humanistic agency.” -Savina Petkova, Electric Ghost
“*** “Papoulia and Boudali give two visceral performances[…] The beautiful cinematography; close shots that capture the inner angst of these characters. The Miracle of the Sargasso Sea is visually compelling, and a show of great creative ambition from Tzoumerkas.” -Victoria Ferguson, The Upcoming
“The Miracle features two terrific female performances – one from co-writer Youla Boudali, the other from Angeliki Papoulia, [who] vibrates at an unnerving pitch that makes Nicole Kidman’s similarly styled characterisation in Destroyer look positively half-baked.[…] Tzoumerkas’s follow-up confirms that he’s a director of some brilliance and daring.” -Jonathan Romney, Screen
“***** Syllas Tzoumerkas’ third film is as slippery as the eels that form its backbone. It’s intense, brutal and surprising – full of strange asides and meandering paths, held together by the suffocating setting of Mesolongi, characterised here as a swampy Greek backwater. […] Tzoumerkas’ vision isn’t overly optimistic, but it’s also not fatalistic or moralising. Police brutality, sexual abuse and other acts of violence aren’t treated clinically, but they are handled as facts. The small-town mentality – “where potential goes to die”, as he’s described it – is largely universal. But the clash of cynically resigned humour against anti-authoritarian rebellion is distinctly Greek. Perhaps that’s the common cultural thread of the so-called ‘weird wave’ – to revel in human absurdity even while extending understanding to it.” -Alex Goldstein, One Room With A View
“**** The resolution of these constantly shuffling character arcs is dispatched with a clinical efficiency that recalls the unflinching pragmatism of Kieślowski’s A Short Film About Killing. Yet surprisingly, Tzoumerkas injects a soothing livener of optimism into the films final moments resulting in a restorative wave of catharsis. This is artistically satisfying, hermetically sealed cinema, with the confidence to embrace a wide range of genre elements and a first-rate thriller to boot. The grimly explicit sex, theological symbolism and wince-inducing violence will keep you on your toes. But ultimately, it is a masterful tale of redemption come full circle via the conduit of moral bankruptcy and how the oxygen of freedom can still exist in the ethical vacuum of oppression.” -Bradley Hadcroft, The People’s Movies
” Syllas Tzoumerkas masterfully mediates between ultimate tristesse and inner hardcore brutality. He has plenty of time for silence, then again the cut is energetic. Both of them do justice to the violence, which is suppressed, then erupted all the more violent. The Miracle of the Sargasso Sea is a pretty big genre movie (finally!)” – Barbara Wurm, TAZ
“There is much to admire in Tzoumerkas’ new film. Some of the early scenes, as well as some near the end of the movie, have an epic quality, thanks to Petrus Sjövik’s cinematography and Jean-Paul Wall’s orchestral score, as well as the dirty Athens setting and the corrupt beauty of the coastal town. Scenes of Elisabeth’s dreams, which overlap and mix with those of Rita’s, with their biblical imagery and unique visual style, transcend the film’s primary themes and add a mystical layer. Dedicated performances, especially Papoulia’s and Boudali’s, provide a powerful, dramatic gravity” Vladan Petkovic, Cineuropa
”Not since Gene Hackman’s Jimmy Doyle in The French Connection have we seen a nastier cop than the one embodied by Angeliki Papoulia.’ – Jörg Gerle, Filmdienst
“The Miracle of the Sargasso Sea, set in the inhospitable surroundings of a sun-parched Messolongi, is a metaphysical thriller loaded with biblical references, an unsettling and disturbing meditation on the concept of paradise featuring two women in profound existential crisis: Elisabeth, (a master Angeliki Papoulia) a disgraced policewoman confined in the province by her superiors following an unfortunate anti-terrorist operation; and Rita (the brave Youla Boudali, also co-screenwriter), a painful figure of a martyr besieged by visions of a mystical background. Tzoumerkas’ cinema is one that’s not afraid of risk or ridicule, one which in fact, has the clear intent of forcing the limits of both the police genre and the auteur film genre, seducing with the skill of its performers and its disquieting aesthetic choices that are never banal. After Homeland (2010) and A Blast (2014), The Miracle of the Sargasso is the third – and more complex – chapter of Tzoumerkas’ ideal trilogy on contemporary Greece.”. – Massimo Lechi, Il Ragazzo Selvaggio
Video Interviews
Meet the Filmmakers – Karlovy Vary International Film Festival Syllas Tzoumerkas
Angeliki Papoulia
Teddy TV – Berlin International Film Festival Syllas Tzoumerkas & Angeliki Papoulia
Tο Θαύμα της Θάλασσας των Σαργασσών | To Thávma tis Thálassas ton Sargassón, feature film, 120′, DCP, color, Greece-Germany-Netherlands-Sweden 2019
Co-producers
Titus Kreyenberg, Ellen Havenith, Olle Wirenhed
Co-producer Film I Väst
Anthony Muir
Associate producer ZDF/ARTE
Meinolf Zurhorst
Commissioning editor SFI
Yaba Holst
Associate producer
Jeroen Beker
Produced by
Homemade Films
Co-produced by unafilm, PRPL, Kakadua Films, Film I Väst, ZDF/ARTE, ERT, NOVA
With the support of
Eurimages, Greek Film Centre, Film und Medienstiftung NRW, Netherlands Film Fund, Swedish Film Institute, DFFF, Netherlands Film Production Incentive, Media Programme, Prefecture of Western Greece, Geitonas Eels
Panayiota gets for the first time a job as a cleaner in an attempt to support her family. While at her work environment she faces a ruthless system of exploitation, she spends the happiest period of her so far dull life. But this is not to last for long as the first layoffs are to arrive soon.
Festivals / Awards
Haifa IFF 2018, Warsaw IFF 2018 (Best Film, F.I.PRES.CI. Award, Young F.I.PRES.CI. Award – 1st/2nd Film Competition), Thessaloniki IFF 2018 (Best Actress Award – Marisha Triantafyllidou), Rabat IFF 2018, Belgrade IFF 2018, Festival du Cinema Méditerranéen de Bruxelles 2018 (Best Film Press Award and Prix Special du Jury), Les Arcs IFF 2018, Göteborg IFF 2019, Bengaluru IFF 2019, Vannes EFF 2019, Kosmorama Trondheim IFF 2019, Sofia IFF 2019 (Best Balkan Film Award), Crossing Europe EFF 2019, Espoo Cine 2019, New York Greek Film Expo 2019, Festival de Cinema de Cinq Continents, Molodist Kiev IFF 2019, LA Greek FF 2019 (Best Actress Award), etc.
3 Hellenic Film Academy Awards – Best Debut Director, Best Actress (Marisha Triantafyllidou), Best Supporting Part Actress (Maria Filini) – Also nominated for Best Film, Best Script and Best Make-up.
World press
“A well-observed study of a woman’s unlikely liberation. The socioeconomic turmoil of contemporary Greece is distilled into the simple yet effective story of one woman who finds gainful employment as a professional cleaner in Her Job, which marks a promising feature debut for writer-director Nikos Labôt. Bolstered by star Marisha Triantafyllidou’s subtly touching turn and told in a straightforward, realistic manner that at times recalls the Dardenne brothers, the film reveals how one of the most basic and least valued vocations can still mean the world for someone struggling to support a family and, even more so, to find a sense of self-worth.” — Jordan Mintzer, The Hollywood Reporter
“Triantafyllidou expresses Panayiota’s evolving strength of spirit and independence in the tiniest of measures; a shift in her countenance or an adjustment in how she carries herself. It’s a Herculean turn by the actress, made all the more so because you can hardly see the muscles she’s using. Behind the camera, Labôt is equally modulated, unfolding the story with patient care across a slim eighty-nine minutes, and never betraying his tone for a grand finale of redemption and lesson-learning. Witnessing the spark of confidence come to life inside Panayiota, and the small rebellions that follow will leave your eyes stung with tears by the note-perfect ending. Her Job is not just about the dignity of work, but what the gift of employment can do to the dignity of a person .” — Kevin Jagernauth, The Playlist
” **** Her Job takes a sensitive look at how work and autonomy can change a person’s outlook. Triantafyllidou’s performance is gentle and nuanced, and her expressive face is often heartbreaking. Director Labôt’s first feature beautifully meditates on the mundane, and is an excellent reminder that all work can be meaningful.” — Michelle Da Silva, NOW
” *** A lively and empathetic journey.” — Yulia Kuzischina, ION cinema
“Thanks to Marisha Triantafyllidou’s organic and absorbing performance, Panayiota’s example sheds new light on the struggle for female empowerment in a toxic environment. When her initial feeling of financial ‘independence’ threatens to cause gender roles within the family to be swapped, the balance in the former pseudo-tranquil household is undone. At this point, the fight for personal autonomy becomes a battle for survival. A survival that can only be achieved through self-liberation. Nikos Labôt delivers a strong drama on the aftermath of the Greek financial crisis and the need for female empowerment in a dislocated and wounded society” — Vassilis Economou, Cineuropa
Video Interviews
Les Arcs International Film Festival Nikos Labot and Marisha Triantafyllidou
Η Δουλειά της | I Douliá tis, feature film, 89′, DCP, Color, Greece-France-Serbia 2018
Produced by
Homemade Films, Sister Productions, Sense Production
With the support of
Greek Film Centre, ERT, the CNC and the GFC – French-Greek Co-production Fund, Ministère des Affaires Étrangères et du Développement International, Institut Français, Film Center Serbia, Cineventure 3, SEE Cinema Network
32-year-old Erkan moves back to his family’s upper-middle class house in Izmir, after a year of misery caused by unemployment and a bitter divorce. Having no plans for the future, he befriends a group of loafers. His aimless drift takes an unexpected turn, when a terrible smell that comes from the gulf starts to spread over the city.
Maria is running away on the highway. She is alone in her roaring SUV. Behind her, fire and a case full of money. In front of her, the hopeless vastness of the motorway. Her crazy, accelerating course will stop at nothing.
Only a day before she was a caring mother, a loving wife, a responsible daughter. Today she has gone rogue: she is determined to sweep away everything she has ever cared for. Maria’s tragic tale of ascent to redemption is narrated through bits of the present that become tangibly interwoven with fragments of the past, creating a dazzling and devastating mural of contemporary Greece.
World premiere
Locarno International Film Festival 2014 – International Competition
Festivals / Awards Sarajevo IFF 2014 – International Competition, BFI London IFF 2014 – Dare, Rotterdam IFF 2015 – Limelight, Karlovy Vary IFF 2015 – Critics’ Choice: VARIETY’s 10 Directors to Watch, A.F.I. American Film Institute – European Film Showcase 2015, Hamburg Filmiest 2014, Seattle IFF 2015 – New Directors, São Paulo IFF 2014 – Nuevos Diretores, Hong-Kong IFF 2015, Joenju IFF 2015 – Fallen Myths – A Tribute to Greek New Wave, Athens IFF 2015 – Best Debut by an Actress Award – Maria Filini, Prishtina IFF 2016 – F.I.PRES.CI. Award, Tallinn Black Nights 2014, New Horizons 2014, Kolkatta IFF 2015, Festival de Cinéma Européen des Arcs 2014, Istanbul IFF 2015, Taipei IFF 2015, Haifa IFF 2015, Crossing Europe EFF 2015, Festival Cinematografico Internacional del Uruguay 2015, Espoo Cine 2015, Otranto FFF 2015 – Critics’ Prize, Ljubljuana IFF 2015, Tofifest 2015,, Luxembourg City IFF 2015, Cyprus Film Days 2015, Thessaloniki IFF 2015, Lichter Filmfest 2015, Rome Independent IFF, Marfa IFF 2015, Mucas IFF 2015, This Human World IFF 2015, etc.
World Press
“A black, bleak, urgently contemporary film. The frantic, unsettling and intriguing record of a woman’s journey, Syllas Tzoumerkas’ charged personal diatribe against an economic system seemingly designed first to make people, and then to break them.”
— Jonathan Holland, The Hollywood Reporter
“Syllas Tzoumerkas’ striking soph feature tackles Greece’s ongoing financial crisis with aggressive gusto.”
— Guy Lodge, VARIETY
“A punchy, difficult, allegorically urgent Greek tragedy. In A Blast, a narrative of personal liberation becomes a political allegory of powerful pessimism. Maria, like her country, may escape the shackles of unfair debt and struggle and poverty, but she can only do it by outrunning her pursuers, leaving a destabilized family behind and eventually facing the future in a state of staggering aloneness. (…) Tzoumerkas refuses to portray Maria as anything so uncomplicated as a victim. Maria is explicitly a woman – wife, daughter, mother, sister – and some of the scenes of most urgent, shocking power come from quieter moments when she simply, clearly negates or repudiates one of those prescribed roles”
— Jessica Kiang, Indiewire & the Playlist
“If you ever wanted your own everyday saga of interpersonal collapse to be interpreted as a sexually heated, hyperkinetic, breathless action-thriller, then chances are it would look very much like A Blast, which takes all of the outwardly mundane rites of family life and refracts, intensifies and heightens them by seizing primarily just upon the peaks and nadirs, shifting back and forth in time to create an expressionist portrait of marital strife and psychological agitation that is more concerned with incendiary impact than polite plotting. The result often feels like A Woman Under the Influence as reinterpreted by early Nicolas Roeg.”
— Travis Crawford, Fandor magazine
“Set against the volatile backdrop of the collapse of the Greek economy, Syllas Tzoumerkas’ freewheeling and full-on drama is a shrill expression of anger, driven forcefully and with a certain fearlessness by a striking lead performance by Angeliki Papoulia as a free-spirited woman who reaches the end of her tether. Syllas Tzoumerkas keeps the film tense and edgy as it spirals towards a moody almost existential ending.”
— Mark Adams, Screen Daily
“Tzoumerkas directs each scene to its boiling point, resulting to montage sequences that stay in mind for long. Angeliki Papoulia, one of the most fearless European actresses, plays Maria without emergency breaks.”
— Oliver Koever, Der Spiegel
“Filmmaker Syllas Tzoumerkas has condensed the Greek crisis into a superb drama of one woman’s journey of self-discovery. Tzoumerkas’ wild, anarchic style reminds us of the young Fatih Akin with his depiction of a society driven „against the wall“ by its own parental generation.”
— D.Kothenschulte, Frankfurter Rundschau
“An angry film that speaks its heart”.
— Joost Booren, De Filmkrant
“A uniquely intelligent, unprecedented portrait that reveals the moods, secrets and deep divisions that run in societies in times of crisis. There has never been such a powerful film about it before”.
— Janusz Wroblewski, Polityka
“The most interesting thing in Tzoumerkas’ work is also the most universal: the rejection of illusion. We don’t really know what to do next, still it’s worth opening our eyes, regardless the price. ”
— Pawel T. Felis, Wyborcza
Produced by
Homemade Films, unafilm, PRPL, Bastide Films, Greek Film Center, Nederlands Film Fonds, Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein, Pan Entertainment, Graal S.A., Marni Films, Mamoko Entertainment, Prosenghisi Ltd, Movimento Film production, in collaboration with ZDF/ARTE, with the support of the MEDIA Programme of the European Union, Nipkow Programm, Eurimages co-production development award, Cinelink – Sarajevo Film Festival
World Sales
Homemade Films
Distribution / Theatrical Releases
Greece (Strada), the Netherlands (Filmfreak), Germany (Real Fiction), Poland (Against Gravity), Denmark (Ost for Paradis), North Macedonia (KT Films), Switzerland (Spot on Distribution), Australia (Bonsai Films), Iceland (Bioparadis), USA (Indiepix), etc.
A post modern theater adaptation of a Greek tragedy takes place in a central theater of Athens. Like every night, the guests take their seats and the play begins. Suddenly, the lights on stage go out. Seven young people, carrying guns, stand up from the audience and come up on stage. They introduce themselves as the Chorus of the tragedy and they invite people from the audience to participate on stage. Gradually, reality and fiction blend. The audience doesn’t realize if this is part of the play. The play will come to its end at the usual time. Until then art will be interrupted by life.
World premiere
Venice International Film Festival 2015 – Orizzonti Competition
Festivals / Awards
Torino IFF 2015, Mumbai IFF 2015, Thessaloniki IFF 2015, Kolkata IFF 2015, Goa IFF 2015, Palm Springs IFF 2016, Istanbul IFF 2016, Vilnius IFF 2016, Cyprus Film Days 2016, Catania FF 2016, LAGFF 2016, Pula IFF 2016, Sarajevo IFF 2016, Festival of Film Critics Camera Action 2016, Skopje IFF 2016, Sao Paulo IFF 2016, Hellas FilmBox FF – New Vision Award, etc.
Best First Film Director Hellenic Film Academy Award 2016
World press
“Interruption is one of the most intelligent films I have seen lately and Yorgos Zois is one of the most unique voices in European Cinema today.” — Ruben Östlund
“Interruption takes Greek myths to tantalizing levels. My reaction was visceral and then I read up on Oresteia to see how amazing and genius Interruption really is. 10/10 — Bruce Fessier, USA TODAY
“Or we can bring to the extreme provocation of Zois, and see an image that is no longer the sign of a representation that does not belong to us but a reflection of an obscure mirror, as if the image was a black hole that attracts itself to the viewer who gets lost within it, until each of us becomes figure, ghost, opaque stain in black: and then the question that we should ask before the screen is no longer ‘what we see is real?’, but ‘are we really us real?'” — Michele Sardone, Film parlato
“Watched Interruption by Yorgos Zois, really interesting Meta take on Oresteia.” — Romain Gavras
“Interruption proposes an ensemble of interesting actors, helped greatly by the complexity of their ambiguous identity on stage. Alexandros Vardaxoglou plays the god-like director, but his identity will soon evolve, stressing again and again the unpredictability of Zois’ beautifully layered screenplay. In other parts, Maria Kallimani, Alexia Kaltsiki, Christos Stergioglou and Maria Filini have their moments of glory in front of Yannis Kanakis’ fluid camera, which uses darkness and light to blur the boundaries between the stage and the audience” — Stefan Doboiou, Cineuropa
“There is something paradoxical in the film that is such a clever metaphor of contemporary world that uses a form associated with ancient times. There is something bizarre in the fact, that it’s piece of art suspended between theater and film, stressing fakeness of the world portrayed on the screen and it’s still talking about social moods so close to ours. Despite all those walls of distance built from Greek dramas, theatrical environment and demanding narration, we are in the middle of our world, observed so accurately by the director. We are watching a film weaved from wise message, unusual form and dare-devil way of storytelling.” — Urszula Lipińska, Stark Magazine
Producers Maria Drandaki, Elie Meirovitz, Sinisa Juricic
Co-producers Theodora Valenti-Pikrou, David Danesi, Victoria Sankina, Filippos Marmoutas, Panos Papadopoulos, Jean-Yves Rousseaux, Sylvain Fage
Executive producer
Constantinos Moriatis
Produced by
Pan Entertainment, EZ Films, JDP in association with Nukleus Film, NOVA, Marni Films, Cinephase, Digital District, Post Faust Ltd, Prosenghisi Ltd, Squaredsquare Films, Homemade Films with the support of the Greek Film Centre, Centre National du Cinéma et de l’image Animée, Ministère des Affaires Étrangères et du Développement International, Institut Français, HAVC, TorinoFilmlab, CNC Award – Cinelink Sarajevo Film Festival, Piraeus Bank and OPAP
The members of carnival float crew Paradise, dressed up as Adam and Eve, exotic birds, creepy crawly snakes and juicy red apples, take part in their local carnival, dancing to samba and techno under the drizzling rain.
Marianna returns to Greece on a whim to surprise her boyfriend, secretly plotting to stay with him forever, while Nikos is using the carnival as an excuse to confess his love to his unsuspecting boss. Eugenia hesitates to tell her daughter about her clandestine romance with the much younger carnival crew leader, while Ilias has no qualms about begging his estranged wife to come home. In the midst of carnival madness, four duets are staking their claim on their own private Paradise…
Festivals / Awards
Thessaloniki International Film Festival 2011- International Competition, Cyprus Film Days 2012, Sao Paolo IFF 2012, Seville IFF 2012.
2 Awards by the Hellenic Film Academy.
Produced by
Pan Entertainment, Greek Film Center, ERT S.A., Nova, Graal, Accelere, Panagiotis Fafoutis, Homemade Films with the support of the MEDIA Programme of the European Union
Homeland is the story of a country and a family in free fall. Three generations of a family (the 50s generation, the one growing up during the restoration of Democracy in the 70s, and the generation of today) clash irrevocably over an adoption they decided to make 20 years ago.
Festivals / Awards
Athens IFF (Best 1st Film Director Award), Tallinn Black Nights IFF 2010, Goteborg IFF 2011, Monaco CIFF (Best Director Award), Istanbul IFF 2011, Karlovy Vary IFF 2011, Voices IFF 2011, Era New Horizons IFF 2011, FIC Valdivia 2011, Manaki Brothers ICFF 2011, Mar del Plata IFF 2011, etc.
5 Awards by the Hellenic Film Academy including Best 1st Film Director.
World Press
“This is a film that dares to interweave a heavy individual tale with social evolution, a film that is challenging in terms of both art and politics, and that on top of all this manages to maintain high artistic qualities. Doesn’t that sound like exactly the sort of thing that nagging writers are always going on about? Viola! The feature debut of young Syllas Tzoumerkas has it all. It tells the story of a family tragedy afflicting three generations of a Greek family, while interweaving the nation’s history from the junta years of the 1960s, past the leftist 1970s and right up to the student revolts of today. Several aspects of Greek society are in for a beating; the patriarchy, the family and sanctimonious politics. You have to pay attention – as there are some chronological leaps here – but the viewer who stays alert will be richly rewarded.”
— Gunnar Bolin, Sveriges Radio
