Dora Volanaki
"A," a Greek filmmaker living in exile in the United States, returns to his native Ptolemas to attend a special screening of one of his extremely controversial films. But A's real interest lies elsewhere--the mythical reels of the very first film shot by the Manakia brothers, who, at the dawn of the age of cinema, tirelessly criss-crossed the Balkans and, without regard for national and ethnic strife, recorded the region's history and customs. Did these primitive, never-developed images really exist?
Giannis is a subversive young man who rebels against any social institution or authority. Unemployed by conviction, he cohabits with his German friend Ilze, who supports him, helps his arrogant uncle , a fallen aristocrat, with his drug smuggling, and becomes friends with a Pontian Turk, Mustapha. The latter has entered Greece illegally and follows Giannis to Athens, hoping to find his Greek grandmother, who is none other than Giannis' grandmother as well. Mustapha steals the hearty of Ilze, whom he entertains with tales of his exploits, but the uncle turns them over to the police, and so they are truly in a tight squeeze. They get out of doing time, despite it all, and leave for Turkey, but they stray into Albania, where they are arrested and sentenced to manual labor.
After having an accident Nassos is brought into a hospital where he lies in coma without regaining his consciousness. All his friends visit him and each of them remembers the most important moments of their friendships.
An old communist returns to Greece after 32 years in the Soviet Union. However, things aren't the way he had hoped for.
Taxidi Tou Melitos is about the fear that most elderly people experience: approaching death. Leon (Stavros Xenides) and Zaharoula (Betty Livanou) are heading out for their annual vacation at a summer resort. Instead of their usual carefree anticipation, their mood is subdued because their daughter has just married and is off on her honeymoon. Life is lonely without her and the couple cannot avoid the realization that death is not that far away for them. Once at the resort, Leon tries to overcome this nagging fear by taking a wild plunge in the ocean, naked, as he and Zaharoula are out walking on the beach. Taken up in the spirit of the moment, she joins him among the waves. The results, however, are not what they expected.
An erotic film that is imbued with many influences from Italian realist cinema, and now and then it adopts a Jean-Luc Godard-like style.
Karl (Petros Fyssoun) is a German officer who falls for a young Greek woman of Jewish ancestry in this symbolic war drama. He wants to marry Lisa (Elli Fotiou), but he dutifully turns her over to the Gestapo when she reveals she is Jewish. Karl learns of the Nazi atrocities when he is transferred to the Eastern Front. At the end of the war, a dejected Karl returns to Athens in hopes of being reunited with the woman whom he willingly turned over to authorities and who ended up in a concentration camp. The premise of the story is hard to take because Lisa was well aware of Karl's rampant anti-Semitic beliefs when her uncle overheard Karl making a speech.
