Greece

Synopsis:
During the dictatorship, a young man goes to Paris, where he seeks help from a solitary and almost misanthropic distant relative who works as a furrier. The young man carries with him the photograph of a singer whom he presents as his sister, thus causing a series of misunderstandings which trap him in a vicious circle of lies and fantasies. An allegory in the form of a modern-day tragedy of the “misunderstandings” and deceits of modern Greek History, as seen through the eyes of a Greek of the Diaspora.Read More »

Description: The story of a beautiful teenager girl whose life is turned around when her ex-porn star dad is made (by his producers) to cast her as the lead in his latest x-rated film. A devastating testimony of the rise and fall of Greek family values, an existentialist journey where habit and cruelty are only separated by life and death.Read More »

Quote:
One of the most outstanding directors of auteur cinema, Costas Zapas gained international acclaim with Uncut Family (2004) and The Last Porn Movie (2006). With Minor Freedoms his trilogy on the family is complete. Cineuropa: Minor Freedoms is the title of your latest film. However, in the film there is too little freedom. Your characters seem to have no choice.Read More »

The life of a boy in his adolescence takes a turn when his relationship with his mother and father is exposed.

Costas Zapas’ debut film.Read More »

Illia is Piraeus’s most popular person: an energetic prostitute, full of life and good humor.
Every day, she swims at the pier, entertaining the dock hands. Sundays she has an
open house with food, drink and song. Homer Thrace, an amateur philosopher from
Middletown, Conn., arrives in town to find out why Greece has fallen from ancient
greatness. He decides Illia is a symbol of that fall, so he sets out to study and to save
her. Unknown to Illia, he gets the money for the books and all else he gives her from Mr.
No Face, the local vice boss who wants Illia retired because her independence gives
other whores ideas. Whose spirit is stronger: Homer’s classical ideal or Illia’s?Read More »

The painful passage from being imprisoned in the extortionate dilemmas of familial and sexual relationships to accepting a personal point of view. A narrative constructed on the associative structure of memory and dreams.Read More »

Here is an excellent overview of the film that provides a ton of background information that greatly helps in understanding this outstanding film.

from Jump Cut, no. 10-11, 1976, pp. 5-6
copyright Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media, 1976, 2004

“In THIASSOS even though we refer to the past, we are talking about the present. The approach is not mythical but dialectical. This comes through in the structure of the film where often two historical times are dialectically juxtaposed in the same shot creating associations leading directly to historical conclusions… Those links do not level the events but bypass the notions of past/present and instead provide a linear developmental interpretation which exists only in the present.”
— Theodoros AngelopoulosRead More »

An ode to cinema as a sensation. A train thunders through a tunnel, seagulls screech above the water. An empty station, a bleak harbour and two lonely souls in a grey town. He’s an engine driver, she sells tickets for the ferry. He sees her every day in his train and is secretly in love. Is there hope for love in Athens?Read More »

Synopsis
A 30-year-old man (Lefteris Vogiatzis) returns from America suffering an existential crisis. He goes to Corfu to see his sick mother and tries to find happiness through a desperate love affair with a young music teacher (Maria Xenoudaki). Along the way, he loses his love and ends his sick mother’s suffering.
IMDb.comRead More »