Festival films

The first smile on the “human face” of socialism, in other words in the Prague Spring, during which there was a glimmer of hope that society as a whole would fully recover. The film, pieced together solely from period footage without commentary, chronologically recalls the key moments of an era when the process of democratization and revival was also accompanied by an extraordinary cultural boom, before its violent collapse.

Using only one camera as a weapon, an Iranian director delves into the Afghani inland, in order to meet its inhabitants and reveal the true face of a country that seems to be in a state of permanent conflict – a face hidden behind stereotypes and easy conclusions. An unassuming, brave mosaic of a devastated country, which is still populated by real people who dream and desire.

Every year, on July 31, the “fifteeners” return to the abandoned Monastery of the Assumption, on the island of Therasia. For two weeks they pray for the eternal rest of the beloved deceased ones and the health of the living. In between, they gaze at cosmopolitan Santorini across the volcano while recalling the past.

Why is it that only 6% of head chefs/restaurant owners are women, when traditionally women have always held the central role in the kitchen? The unique story of a Greek American single mother and small town restaurateur with a larger-than-life personality, who is on a mission to do what she loves against all odds, shows the Greek culinary influence on the world and the importance of this woman's Greek culture as a restaurateur and mother.

A lifeguard who teaches refugees how to swim, two blind people communicating through sculpture at the NPO “Lighthouse for the Blind,” the preparation of the front page of a big cooperative newspaper, a Syrian cantor and musician, a Congolese feast at Lesvos, a personal ad... What do they all have in common? All these and many more are the pieces of the mosaic depicting a version of the contemporary Greek society characterized by solidarity, by the need to enhance cooperation and reflection on our lives in order to claim a more spiritual everyday life. However, at the same time, one can discern the loneliness of those who crave to find a life partner or a friend while daydreaming about an “elsewhere”. A whole world struggling to look onwards to the future.

A reflection on the fragility and folly of humanity in the age of the Anthropocene – the geological period where man is the dominant species on planet Earth. Taking the disaster of Fukushima as its point of departure, the projected images (shot on a telephone through a handheld telescope, so at once close to and far from their subjects) evoke an apocalyptic vision of modernity; at the same time, they reveal our predilection for historical amnesia and futuristic flights of fancy.

Over the centuries, local communities around the Missolonghi lagoon have created natural fish farms called “ivaria,” to capture fish during their migration to the sea. There is a special word for ivari fishing: “alima.” The film observes the daily routine of the fishermen in the ivari of Komma.

Across the closed borders of Eurasia, men reflect upon their desires and regrets, floating through the expanse striving to fill their days and dreams, as much as their pockets. As a lonely stationmaster sits idle in suspended time, waiting for 25 years for the return of trains, while workers of all ages labor to build a new rail line for the future generations. Α meditative exploration of geopolitics disguised in a contemplative western.

Five years in the life of a fearless girl that grows up amidst the protests on Tahrir Square, and searches for her identity as an adult woman in a refounded, yet steadily country. Her name, Amal, means “hope.” A fragile personal chronicle about the need for political and personal change.

The documentary narrates the holocaust of eight villages in Rethymnon, Crete, on 22 August 1944, by Nazi occupation forces, during which 164 inhabitants where executed in retaliation for the abduction of German General Karl Heinrich Kreipe. The executions and the holocaust occurred simultaneously in all eight settlements. Not one stone was left upon another. All properties were ravaged by the Nazis.

A thoughtful reading of the American political reality outside of the 1968 student demonstrations in Chicago follows the footsteps of Black Panther Bobby Lee, as he attempts to find a common cause with the poor Appalachian white community living in the city. Despite their seeming differences, the groups find shared experiences – police violence, poverty, lack of employment – and insinuate a cruel hope for the birth of a cross-racial and interethnic political movement.

An Oscar-winning filmmaker re-opens the file of a 1989 murder case, by focusing this time on the victim’s husband, who was found guilty in court, and her son who was the main witness for the prosecution. Their meeting in jail, where the son will seek answers, finely dissects the manifold nature of evil and the magnitude of human resilience.

The composer Nikos Kypourgos, on the occasion of the Greek National Theater's homonymous performance, talks on Aristophanes' Peace, the power of music and everything that renders a poetic work of 421 BC a timeless comedy.

Α testimony of survival, a tangible document that reconstructs a period in the history of Cambodia that still remains untold: during the Angkar – the two years that followed the Khmer Rouge’s rise to power – three million executions were commanded. The director’s father, who was one of the survivors, now meets his former persecutors in the obscure intimacy of the village in which they lived together for four years...

After an accident that almost cost him his life, Christos Kapatos decides to leave a successful career in shipping and moves back to his parents' house in 2011. At the same time, his father, Antonis, suffers a series of strokes that leave him with some minor kinetic but major speech disabilities. The only people who can understand him are his son and wife. In 2012, Christos starts recording his life in the house, trying to come to terms with this new model for cohabitation. While setting out to depict the anxiety, worries, frustration and hope for a better future, he rediscovers his own family and, along with that, Antonis' voice.

After the settlement of refugees, the refugee crisis was transferred to the integration of their children into schools. In the school year 2016–17, the 1st Elementary School of Oreokastro was transformed into an absurd battleground by racists who reacted to the attendance of 7 children in the afternoon classes.

An unemployed filmmaker and victim of the economic crisis takes on a long journey, in search of alternative ways to bypass the ugliness of the rallies on the streets of Athens and reach viable solutions for the global depression of our modern lifestyle.

Τhis documentary is a socio-political and historical account of the alternative art scene, forms of expression and mindsets in Greece in the age of recession. A great part of the documentary focuses on the concept of authenticity and the power of this alternative movement. As is the case with every project by Sergios Vefeiadis, the film is defined by intensity and political complexity.

What is it that remains hidden behind the bodybuilders’ swollen muscles, their stretched, tatted skin, the everyday rituals of preservation and enhancement of a flamboyant masculinity? One of the most interesting contemporary filmmakers observes the paradoxical human need to detach from one’s body and turn it into an object of admiration, as well as the talent to find balance through exaggeration.

A professor of Sociology conducts a field research in the premises of the most hated agency of the Swedish state: the Public Employment Agency. Filtering his results through imaginative methods such as the creative use of cardboard puppets, he articulates a fascinating, comical study of the desperate effort of the Western man to stand up against bureaucracy.

A documentary about the Resistance during the Nazi Occupation of Athens. Fourteen people recalling memories from that period. A film about collective memory.