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.
Cast
Alexandros Vardaxoglou, Sofia Kokkali, Pavlos Iordanopoulos, Hristos Karteris, Romanna Lobats, Angeliki Margeti, Natassa Brouzioti, Aineias Tsamatis, Constantinos Voudouris, Maria Kallimani, Areti Seidaridou, Spyros Sidiras, Christos Sougaris, Alexandros Sotiriou, Elena Topalidou, Maria Filini, Vasilis Andreou, Daphne Ioakimidou-Patakia, Alexia Kaltsiki, Effi Rabsilber, Christos Stergioglou, Labros Filippou, Nikos Flessas
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
Feature film, 110′, DCP, Color, Greece-France-Croatia 2015
Video Interviews
Yorgos Zois and cast – Venice IFF
