Festival films

The whole country in 1989 watched live on television as angry crowds forced Romanian dictator Ceausescu to flee Bucharest by helicopter. In a quiet town east of the capital, sixteen years since this historic day, the owner of the local TV station invites two guests to share their moments of revolutionary glory. One is an old retiree and sometime Santa Claus, the other a history teacher who has just devoted his entire salary to his drinking debts.Together they will remember the day when they stormed their town hall shouting “Down with Ceausescu!”. But phone-in viewers dispute the claims of the heroes, who were propably drinking in the bar or making Christmas preparations rather than rebelling in the streets.

The adventure of five fifteen-year-old boys in Singapore: estranged to every social reference, except for that of appearance and close friendships, they live their lives distant from their families and school, passing their days in a complete state of indolence in the search of experiences, at times even physically painful (tattoos, piercing, wounds).Their imagination is completely colonized by MTV, cartoons, electronic jingles, publicity and comics.

Acontemporary, ensemble drama telling the complex tale of six high school students whose lives are interwoven with situations that so many of today’s youth are faced with.The story takes place during a normal school day.At precisely 2:37 a tragedy will occur, affecting the lives of a group of students and their teachers. As the story unfolds, the individual stories of the six teenagers are revealed, each with its own explosive significance.

Xiao Wu’s existence revolves around school, an empty apartment and the dubious comfort in instant noodles. One day, his routine is subtly transformed by a tenant in the apartment who is nursing a heartache. Their paths cross only once in a while. Longing for human contact, Xiao Wu tries all he can to make a connection through physical and metaphorical walls in that hour between night and day.

This film, which was banned by the censorship of the period, shows Greek workers in Europe.

Thirty-year-old country bumpkin Zhang Baogen arrives in Shanghai to claim his lottery prize, a deluxe penthouse apartment. But the small print didn’t mention that the building has yet to be completed. He moves in with a distant relative from his hometown, debt-ridden “aunt” Huang Jinfang. Huang dreams of being rich, envious of best friend Chen Minhui who is dating handsome businessman Bai Jianhua. Unable to keep a job, Zhang sets up his own lowly business, selling lunchboxes with neighbor Granny Cai.When Minhui discovers that Bai is only in fact a chauffer, she realizes that finding love is more important than money.

A mature sociology professor going through a mid-life crisis resigns from his job, abandons his family and lives isolated in his country house. His only incentive for living is the faded face of an unknown girl in a photograph he had taken in the past and whom he now starts looking for.

Natasha, a Russian refugee, seeks a place in the Greek sun.

Apolice officer who discovers a big cargo of drugs becomes involved in the conspiracy of his superior who comes after him. One of the reasons: the love of the police officer who scored the success for the sister of his commanding officer... Betty Livanou replaced Zoe Laskari who walked out after disagreements early on in the shooting. The film was fourth on the chart of the year’s box office hits due in no small measure to its star Nikos Kourkoulos who was then at the height of his popularity.

Milly Yannakaki, Alexis Grivas, Yorgos Yannakakis

Vincent’s life will only resume the day his wife’s murderer is arrested. His neighbor,Alice, is convinced she can make him happy. She decides to invent a culprit, so that Vincent can find revenge and leave the past behind. But there is no ideal culprit, and no perfect crime either...

Jacob Petersen has dedicated his life to helping street children in India.When the orphanage he heads is threatened by closure, he receives an unusual offer. A Danish businessman, Jorgen, offers him a donation of four million dollars.There are, however, certain conditions... Not only must Jacob return to Denmark, he must also take part in the wedding of Jorgen’s daughter. The wedding proves to be a critical juncture between past and future and catapults Jacob into the most intense dilemma of his life.

Shapes made of stones and a collection of miscellaneous objects.

A hero... in Rome is a road movie about a young man who dares to make his dream a reality. He goes to Rome to see his idol in the world of opera. Instead, he falls victim to a theft that changes and upsets everything in his life.A series of tragicomic situations ensue.The bittersweet experience of a journey; loneliness; searching; nostalgia for tender innocence. An extreme event mars his return to Greece and so he becomes the hero of the day for the media. But deep inside his soul, what was this trip for him?

Omeris, a Turkish Cypriot boy, grows up with Greek-Cypriots in the innocent years of his homeland. He has been taught that human beings have no differences between them, whether they call themselves Greek or Turk, Muslim or Christian. When he falls in love with a Greek-Cypriot girl, he realizes that the world is not as he imagined it to be.The game of love has many surprises in store for him. Destiny ordains that he fight so that he can stay with his beloved, at a moment when the people around him are moving in exactly the opposite direction, towards separation and partition. If he doesn’t want to be defeated he must fight the absurdity of fanaticism that is invading his personal life and is trying to crush it.

Sitting on a river bank, little Alice leafs through a book. She then tells the spectators they will now watch a film. She reappears in a room cluttered with old domestic objects. Her attention is drawn to a glass cabinet with a stuffed white rabbit inside it.The rabbit comes alive and disappears into the drawer of a table, only to reappear in the middle of a field. Alice follows him and finds herself in a cellar that takes her to a Kafkaesque wonderland; to get away from the uncomfortably big or small places she passes through, Alice sometimes has to grow incommensurably and other times needs to shrink to the size of a doll...

German journalist Philip has a case of writer’s block when trying to write an article about the USA and he decides to return to Germany. At the airport he meets Lisa, an attractive German woman who has just left her husband, and her nine-year-old daughter Alice. Disappearing at the last minute before their departure, Lisa asks Philip to take Alice to Amsterdam. When Lisa fails to turn up in Amsterdam,Alice is finally persuaded to mention a grandmother. After further searching, Philip turns Alice over to the police, but is not displeased when she sneaks away and rejoins him, with new information about her grandmother.

Everyman Lei Haiyang is having girlfriend problems. He quits his job and hitches a ride to Beijing, sharing a ride in the back of a truck with a young female runaway.Waking mid-journey, Lei finds the truck broken down in the woods and the girl missing. Following her screams, he discovers that she’s been raped and that the truck drivers plan to murder him next.When she stumbles across him as they take her away, she doesn’t betray him. He returns home, securing his job back and a semblance of normality, when the police announce that a raped and strangled corpse has been found in the woods. Lei identifies the mutilated body for the police. But then on the subway, he spies a woman who looks just like her...

Summer of 2004.Athens is frantically preparing for the Olympic Games, demonstrations against the Iraq war rock the streets and international scepticism about security is peaking. Niko, a courier, appears to lead a carefree existence amid the mayhem, surrounded by friends, frequenting protests, partying and picking up girls. What his friends do not know however is that he is also a police informer. Driven by greed and his lust for his rival’s girl, he begins to fabricate the reality that his handler is seeking. As his machinations spiral out of control, Niko discovers that he has unwittingly opened a Pandora’s box of political intrigue...

Athens. Amsterdam. Alphaville. Three cities. Three cars. Three stories of people who lose their way.The fact that two of the cities are real while the third is cinematic is neither a random choice nor a tribute to Godards Alphaville (1965). It rather goes to show that in a the image defies the limits between fictional space and geographical reality; abolishes the difference between here and elsewhere; indifferently mixes the before and after.A strange road movie, a roam movie, a draws a paradoxical map that helps you lose rather than find the way.

Tony is a Greek immigrant who arrives in San Francisco chasing the “other” American dream