Ieronymos Kaletsanos
Petros is a gay archaeologist who experiences the naked Greek paranoia in the center of Athens. Either by choice or coincidence, he comes into contact with people who are "different": An Arab immigrant, who comes to Greece, a land of "infidels", determined to conquer it by any means; A Greek-French cello player, who is burdened by the agony of her alcoholic mother; A young Albanian pianist, who carries the curse of his own personal genius and divinity; A Greek immigrant, who was repatriated but now has nowhere to call home; A bank director, who believes everything can be bought, even love; A patrolman, who creates his own version of socio-political reality. Petros' contact with these people is in fact a traumatic experience. For each encounter he has to pay a price. Sometimes the price is material, while other times it's emotional. At times it is both. Will the experience gained make up for the loss?
According to the director: “The film deals with the corrosive effect, on a relatively advanced life, of what psychologists may call ‘the repressed’, while I prefer to concentrate on the beautiful Greek word ‘kaemos’ [καημός, translated as longing, unfulfilled desire]. The most ‘realistic’ and most synoptic… synopsis I can give for the fiction of the film is: ‘A man comes face to face with himself’, but this wording (and here comes the fantasy element) must be read literally.”
When fourteen-year-old Myrto learns her father has fled to avoid paying his debts, she kidnaps the son of his business partner whom she blames for bankrupting her father's joiner's workshop. Memories resurface as she wanders through the aisles of the workshop, where she hides her victim between stacks of spruce, oak and ebony.
Twice-orphaned Jace, a seven-year-old Albanian of Greek origin, witnesses a massacre that wipes out his entire foster family in Argyrokastron, and then falls in the hands of a bunch of ruthless gangsters who "export" children abroad for various profitable reasons (ranging from beggary to organ trade). Jace ends up in Athens, Greece, begging at street corners, exploring the secret horrors of brutal institutions for young offenders or, much later, serving obscure patrons, in an underworld where violent loss seems to be his only destiny. The movie follows Jace's inverted Odyssey in a dark universe of abuse, murder and fear, as he desperately (and silently) seeks for a "family" of his own or, at least, for a sense of belonging
Two brothers, the honest Michalis and the swindler Nontas, are forced to resort to bank robberies in order to pay off the latter's entanglements with the mafia. Michalis' love for a secret police officer, a strange couple of her colleagues and Nontas' greed will make things even more complicated.
