The 29th Greek Film Festival of Sydney has announced its complete line up of quality Greek films for 2024.
The Greek Film Festival, organised by the Greek Orthodox Community of NSW (GOCNSW) and proudly presented by Metaxa, will run from 15-27 October 2024 and will present 33 works in total.
In an exciting development for this year’s edition, the Film Festival will be housed in two homes as it screens its full program of feature films at its standard home of Palace Cinemas Norton Street, as well as the new location of Palace Cinemas Moore Park.
The 13-day event will feature many Australian premieres for Greek films, a major one being Eva Nathena’s Murderess which is based on Alexandros Papadiamantis’ novel of the same name.
This year’s edition will also include a retrospective on the great Greek Director, Nikos Koundouros, presented in partnership with and curated by the Melbourne Cinémathèque.
Another key aspect of the calendar is the 12th Greek Student Film Festival, which will present some excellent works from youth following a successful filmmaking workshop that took place on Saturday 17 August.
The festival will also feature exciting screenings with Q&A sessions, as well as other special events.
Full Program:
Hear Who’s Talking, 2023 – OPENING NIGHT
Fotis is at an impasse both personally and professionally. He is a life coach by profession who has lost his orientation. The sessions that once fulfilled him professionally no longer offer him the same inner satisfaction and in his personal life he has completely isolated himself. At this critical turning point for himself and his career, a familiar voice that can only be heard inside his mind will take action. It is the voice of his conscience trying to make him live again. Will Fotis be able to find… Fotis again and fall in love before all is lost?
The Aegean, 2024 – CLOSING NIGHT
In a world that has started to forget him, Hector, a widowed fisherman, feels the weight of his solitude. Everything changes when he encounters Theodore, a teenager desperately seeking a saviour to rescue him from a dire situation. United by their shared struggles, they embark on a journey across the enchanting Aegean Sea, where amidst the azure waters they discover a newfound purpose and a reason to carry on.
Arcadia Champagne D’Orient, 2023:
Welcome to the Papanikolaou Brothers Winery: Meet the patriarch father, the visionary son Vassilis, the adventurer brother Nikos, and a mother as strict as Cerberus. ProducingArcadian effervescent wines since 1885, they dream to transform the region into the Champagne of the East. The family’s inner conflicts and their competitors will lead them to a tragic end. A story about wine and greed.
In a Fishbowl, 2023:
After an accident, a young woman finds herself in a remote mansion trying to recover her memory with the help of a mysterious caretaker. Is it worth getting her memory back?
In a Fishbowl is a film about forgetfulness and trauma. The protagonist, when she recalls what happened to her, answers us with a riddle, a code that the viewers are invited to solve at the end of the film: “Every soul must light a candle, a light in the wild night.”
Operation Star, 2024:
It is the winter of 1943. Somewhere in central Greece. A captain and a sergeant of the Greek army are the only survivors of a failed sabotage attempt against a German target during World War II. The two men are forced to flee to a village. They are pursued by a platoon of German army soldiers led by a tough German lieutenant. In the midst of war, a love is born that will change everyone’s lives. The film is based on true events.
Where We Live, 2022:
It’s a usual day in downtown Athens, with the usual demonstrations and traffic jams. It’s Antonis Spetsiotis’ birthday. Antonis is a down on his luck attorney who gets involved with uninteresting cases. And yet, this fine day will turn out to be a turning point; all his relationships and commitments will be challenged and re-examined. Antonis will move frantically from the Court Houses to the wilderness of the remote Athenian outskirts and from his modest bachelor pad to a luxurious suburban villa where dodgy business is going on. In 24 hours, this modern Ulysses will make an interior trip and when the new dawn breaks he will be a changed man.
The Last Taxi Driver, 2023:
Thomas works as a taxi driver by night and he lives with his wife, Maria, and his teenage son, Tassos. When one of his customers commits suicide, Thomas is prompted to confront everything he’s kept buried inside for too long and to realise the shortcomings of his life. When he meets Eleni, his client’s lost daughter, he sees in her a way out of his weary life and becomes romantically obsessed with her.
Animal, 2023:
Under the hot Greek sun, the animateurs at an all-inclusive island resort prepare for the busy tourist 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.
Murderess, 2023:
Based on a classic novel by Alexandros Papadiamantis, Murderess takes place on a remote island in Greece, circa 1900. Hadoula, widow of Ioannis Fragos, is a woman who has learned to survive in a male-dominated, patriarchal society by serving as amid wife, a trade that her mother passed down to her. Witnessing and being an accomplice of women’s humiliation and inferiority Hadoula is rebelling inside and it won’t take long for this to manifest in her actions. Trapped in her own mother’s rejection, Hadoula struggles to survive the dictates of a patriarchal society, while the little girls of the island become her victims…
Of Men and Monsters: The Cinema of Nikos Koundouros
The Ogre of Athens, 1956:
Once voted the greatest Greek film of all time by the Greek Film Critics Association, Koundouros’ most famous work uses a familiar Hitchcockian story of mistaken identity to criticise post-World War II Greece’s culture of relentless political persecution. Scripted by the prominent playwright Iakovos Kambanellis, himself a survivor of the Mauthausen concentration camp, the film’s noirish atmosphere of fluid forms and illusionary spaces is enhanced by the lens of cinematographer Costas Theodoridis (Stella) and the music of Koundouros’ close friend Manos Hatzidakis (Never on Sunday).
The Magic City, 1954:
Koundouros’ first feature is a powerful, neorealism-influenced study of poverty in the slums of post-war Athens. In 1953, after being released from the prison island of Makronisos, where he was held for being a member of the National Liberation Front, Koundouros visited the Drogouti refugee camp and was inspired to make this film, drawing on many of his fellow inmates, including Thanasis Vengos (in his first screen appearance) and Manos Katrakis, to furnish the film’s cast and crew. Written by avant-garde playwright Margarita Lymberaki.
1922, 1978:
Banned by successive Greek governments, ostensibly because its release would ruin diplomatic relations with Turkey, Koundouros’ adaptation of Ilias Venezis’ autobiographical novel Number 31328 is a passionate plea against the political and military establishment that was complacent during the ethnic cleansing of Greeks in Anatolia. Told through the imaginative eyes of a boy who escapes Turkish imprisonment, the film is arguably the first time the true magnitude of the genocide was depicted onscreen “without evasions, phobias, or pretexts” (Vrasidas Karalis).
Young Aphrodites, 1963:
In 200BCE, nomadic sheepherders venture down from the mountains to a fishing village, where all the men are out to sea. Although almost all of the remaining women hide, a young girl and an older woman engage in different kinds of erotic and romantic interaction. Are working of the classical tale of Daphnis and Chloe, Koundouros won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlin International Film Festival for this controversially graphic and erotic observation of young lust and inevitable sexual violence, which Stanley Eichelbaum called “a ritualistic dance of love, hate, fear, lust and death.”
Little Things That Went Wrong, 2023:
Fanis, after his glory days as a TV celebrity, has gone downhill for good. All he needs now is a divine sign to make it again. Pavlos, meanwhile has built the perfect world for himself. Yet what keeps him away from his career and the ideal family life is reality. Their lives get tangled together now that Muffin the dog is dead.
The Promotion, 2023:
2012. Nikos lives in Athens. He is a film director who teaches film direction at the University of Thessaloniki. Today he will ask his father, Andrikos, to accompany him to the swearing-in ceremony for his promotion to the higher rank at the University – a father-son train journey, with time running backward.
Africa Star, 2024:
Africa Star follows three generations of Cypriot women – mother, daughter, and granddaughter – whose lives were tragically altered by one man’s submission to temptation. Plagued by guilt over his act in 1945 and his failure to make amends in 1967, the now ailing octogenarian makes one last attempt in 2008.
Guest Star, 2023:
Lucianos Asvestopoulos is the most photographed child in the history of the country and the son of two of the most brilliant stars of the Greek star system, who are no longer alive, the fiery redhead Linda Nika and the hunk Lykourgos Asvestopoulos. He did not inherit any talent from his parents to get noticed. When an offer presents itself to become the Late Night host of a major TV network, Lucianos will try to make something of himself for the first time.
Aligned, 2023:
Aeneas, struggling with a sense of worthlessness, finds comfort in dance. When he is paired with Alex, a Greek-American dancer, the two men find a connection that goes beyond their art. The intoxicating power of physical discovery and a shared love of Hellenic culture and New York City are vividly revealed in a love story partly played out through music and movement. This intimate tale reveals the beauty that lies within us all and the transformative power of self-love, for it’s in accepting the paradox of our perfect/imperfect humanity that we are ultimately connected to an experience of the divine.
Gorgones kai Magkes (Mermaids & Rascals), 1968:
Rumours have it that a Swiss company is making investment plans in a Greek island. A couple of Athenian entrepreneurs rush to the island to buy land and flip it for profit. The Athenian couple, a race-car driver, Petros, and an actress, Flora, meet the resistance of the island’s grand old lady who does not wish to sell land to outsiders. The business plans eventually fail to materialise, but romance ensues between the actress and the son of the lady as well as the race-car driver and a local girl. The film has references to ancient Greek tragedy and contains elements from it such as a chorus.
Brando With a Glass Eye, 2024:
Luca is a talented method actor who has brutally abandoned his emerging career in the Athens theatre scene, as he is determined to leave for New York City and study method acting there. He works as a mechanic for 4 euros an hour and lives in Kypseli with his younger brother, Aleko, in a run-down apartment. Their mother has passed away after suffering from a series of beatings by Kosta, their father, who is in jail for a different crime.
The two brothers are in conflict with their future. The pragmatic Aleko is determined to lift himself out of poverty and focuses on opening a Cognac Bar. For Luca, the loss of his mother threatens to spell the death of his being if he cannot translate it into a meaningful artistic expression.
Detached House, 2023:
A petty thief enters a house unaware that it belongs to a retired police officer. He soon finds himself trapped in a twisted game of power, infidelity and sexual perversion. This soon becomes a public spectacle. Driven by power and ambition, truth and deception fiercely collide. Which will prevail? Is escape a possibility?
What If, 2012:
Under the Athenian night sky, before the silent threat of an imminent socio-economic crisis, a young man goes fora stroll and meets the love of his life. Does fate govern one’s existence? What would have happened if he stayed in, instead?
“A different love story in a time when everything is changing” from the creator of Maestro in Blue Christopher Papakaliatis.
The Rhapsodist, 2023:
On a warm summer night Aesop, a modern-day novelist gifted with telling stories that blend reality with fantasy, walks into a bar, sits down next to a lonely customer, and begins to tell his story. Soon the bar is filled with more and more people who become his fanatical audience. With his stories, Aesop manages to penetrate the hearts and minds of his listeners by involving particular characters and situations.
Medium, 2023:
On the verge of adulthood and having recently lost her mother, Eleftheria escapes the suffocating reality of the Greek countryside and visits her pregnant older sister, in scorching hot August Athens. Wandering the streets of the unknown metropolis, she will discover the awakening of sexual desire in the face of enigmatic Angelos, who invites her into his eccentric grown up world and the whirlpool of first love.
Ange & The Boss: Puskas in Australia, 2024:
The great Hungarian striker Ferenc Puskas storied playing and coaching career ended in the relative backwater of Middle Park in Melbourne, coaching a South Melbourne Hellas team captained by current Spurs manager Ange Postecoglou. A sporting story of a humble football colossus in soccer’s new world, full of quirky anecdotes and a ripping championship finale. And also a story of Australia’s ethnic football heritage, and how it sustained new arrivals.
Yani Spanos: A Life Behind The Marquee, 2024:
Yani Spanos, the musical genius behind classic songs and timeless melodies who chose to stay away from the spotlight, is revealed for the first time in the documentary Yani Spanos: A Life Behind theMarquee. Through his own words and the memories and stories of dozens of renowned collaborators and friends, director Aris Dorizas paints the life and nearly 60-year artistic journey of the man who shaped Greek music, created Neo Kyma (New Wave), and charmed even Brigitte Bardot with his talent, yet whose work remains at odds with his fame. In this unique documentary, Spanos himself, in dialogue with the director, attempts to explain why the creator can never ultimately be greater than his work.
ANZAC The Greek Chapter, 2024:
April 1941 – Hitler launches his invasion of Greece. In homes across Australia and New Zealand people feared what lay ahead for their loved ones who were sent as part of the Allied force to defend Greece. This documentary tells the story of that valiant defence like never before. Drawing on over 130 hours of veteran interviews, see and listen to the story of the campaign from the veterans themselves. See them make their way north to stand alongside their Greek comrades as part of the Allied defence force. Listen to them recount the bitter battles and sorrows of the campaign. Hear them praise their Greek hosts who fought with them and helped them. Narrated by Barrie Cassidy, whose father served in the campaign, the documentary is a unique account of this campaign and of the Anzacs who served there. A fitting document of this essential part of the Hellenic link to the Anzac story. Not to be missed.
Broken Sound, 2021:
Following the history of the bouzouki, a popular Greek instrument, the documentary offers an overview of modern Greek society’s evolution and cultural identity. Although consumerism, globalisation, and the digitisation of our social interactions felt as if the tradition of bouzouki and folklore music would fade with time, a new generation of young bouzouki players and inheritors of its authentic cultural agency has emerged. The collective physiognomy of the bouzouki player is composed through interviews with major figures in the modern history of the bouzouki, but also archive material from films, TV recordings, and live performances.
The Last Prayer, 2023:
An unknown story, another war crime, comes to light. 1943. The Germans try in vain to regain their lost power. In their attempt to neutralise resistance activity in the mountains, they declare the mountain ranges a no-go zone. But the shepherds of Psiloritis, having no other way to feed their families, defy the danger and violate the forbidden zone, risking their lives. No one can imagine the devastation to come. Produced in 2023 – this documentary refers to the events that unfolded on September 4and 5, 1943 at Gournolakkos, in the Livadia area of Mylopotamos province in Crete.
Magna Graecia – The Greko of Calabria, 2024:
Two Greek Aussie filmmakers set off on a tour to find the last remaining Greko speakers, deep, deep in Calabria. The two find something unexpected, hope… Hope that language and culture survive as young Greko speakers have valiantly taken up the campaign to speak Greko as more and more Greko elders pass away. Basil and Billy explore seven towns, learning about the stories of the Greko, the decline of Hellenism in Magna Graecia and how a small, close knit group of youngsters are determined to save the language from the jaws of extermination. Calabria was once dominated by Hellenism, where one could not move freely through the entire south of the Italian Peninsula without being able to speak Greek. At their peak, 1,500 Orthodox monasteries and churches adorned Magna Graecia – Greater Greece, The unification of Italy in the 1800s and the imposition of the dialect of Tuscany as modern Italian accelerated the decline of the Greko language, which many looked down upon as an uncouth language in the poorest parts of Italy. The documentary will hopefully inspire you to visit these towns and learn about the ancient and Byzantine Greko dialect.
Grief: Those Who Remain, 2023:
A descent into the world of mourning and loss through 3 homicide stories, that shocked the Greek and European society: the cruel murders of Shahzad Luqman, Pavlos Fyssas and Zak Kostopoulos. The grieving families of the victims converse with their absences, defend the memory of the dead, transmute their suffering into a fight for justice. A kaleidoscope on the loneliness in the private space, the courtrooms and the streets.
Mother of The Station, 2023:
The documentary Mother of the Station follows the lives of Greek women immigrants who came to Germany during 1960-1973 and worked in hard jobs. The Second World War was a landmark both in European and Greek history. Since then, one million people immigrated to Germany. Some decades later, the scenario remains the same.
Mary, Marianna, Maria – The Unsung Greek Years of Callas, 2024:
Her foremost artistic achievements and little-known debuts, the figures who so influenced her, and the major landmarks in her development as an artist, but also the prevailing social and political circumstances in Greece during World War II, the Greek Civil War milieu of the 1940s and ’50s, and the unjust attacks she endured – these are the key narrative threads used to tell the story of the troubled, novel-like life of Callas, who always walked the line between tragedy and triumph.
Full program details on the upcoming Film Festival, including how to buy tickets, can be found at https://greekfilmfestival.com.au/sydney
Full Event Details
- What: 29th Greek Film Festival Sydney
- When: 15-27 October 2024
- Where: Palace Cinema Norton St (99 Norton St, Leichardt, NSW 2040) and Palace Cinema Moore Park (122 Lang Rd, Moore Park NSW 2021).
- Tickets: https://greekfilmfestival.com.au/sydney
