Like Stone Lions in the Gateway into Night

Between 1947 and 1951, more than 80 000 Greek men, women and children were deported to the isle of Makronissos (Greece) in reeducation camps created to ‘fight the spread of Communism’. Among those exiles were a number of writers and poets, including Yannis Ritsos and Tassos Livaditis. Despite the deprivation and torture, they managed to write poems which describe the struggle for survival in this world of internment. These texts, some of them buried in the camps, were later found. «Like Lions of stone at the gateway of night» blends these poetic writings with the reeducation propaganda speeches constantly piped through the camps’ loudspeakers. Long tracking shots take us on a trance-like journey through the camp ruins, interrupted along the way by segments from photographic archives. A cinematic essay, which revives the memory of forgotten ruins and a battle lost.

2012-04-20 | fr

Evaporating Borders

Evaporating Borders is a poetically photographed and rendered film on tolerance and search for identity. Told through 5 vignettes portraying the lives of migrants on the island of Cyprus, it passionately weaves themes of displacement and belonging.

2014-03-11 | en

Kerkini: The Bird Sanctuary

2021-01-01 | fr

Alexander

Alexander, the King of Macedonia, leads his legions against the giant Persian Empire. After defeating the Persians, he leads his army across the then known world, venturing farther than any westerner had ever gone, all the way to India.

2004-11-21 | en

Topos

During its 85-minute running time, this jarring experimental film takes a no-holds-barred look at the way women have been treated and depicted in Western art.

1985-10-01 | el

What Is a Good Tax?

Too high, misused, unfair... a large part of the French and Europeans criticize taxes. From tax-rascal to tax revolt, the movement of yellow vests in France has returned to the center of attention the question of consent to tax. How to explain a different resistance to taxes from one country to another without tax pressure being an explanation? Is there a "good" tax? Jean Quatremer takes us on a journey to the tax center across Europe, to meet those who pay it, those who decide it, those who study it... or those who allow to avoid it.

2019-05-08 | fr

Underwater Papanikolis

1971-09-24 | el

The Travelling Players

This expansive Greek drama follows a troupe of theater actors as they perform around their country during World War II. While the production that they put on is entitled "Golfo the Shepherdess," the thespians end up echoing scenes from classic Greek tales in their own lives, as Elektra plots revenge on her mother for the death of her father, and seeks help from her brother, Orestes, a young anti-fascist rebel.

1975-07-01 | el

My Human Self

The inspiring story of the unemployed man who stood up against the Greek crisis and created a social kitchen for the homeless and refugees.

2017-03-06 | el

The Lark Farm

The Lark Farm is set in a small Turkish town in 1915. It deals with the genocide of Armenians, looking closely at the fortunes, or rather, misfortunes of one wealthy Armenian family.

2007-01-01 | it

It Started with Trees – Revolt in the Gezi Park

Protesters diary from Gezi Park - Taksim Square, Istanbul. Occupy Gezi movement started when the government decided to build shopping mall in place of the last green area that remained in the middle of Taksim Square.

2013-06-16 | cs

Cleopatra

Determined to hold on to the throne, Cleopatra seduces the Roman emperor Julius Caesar. When Caesar is murdered, she redirects her attentions to his general, Marc Antony, who vows to take power—but Caesar’s successor has other plans.

1963-06-12 | en

Lost in the Bewilderness

Lost in the Bewilderness is a feature-length documentary about the filmmaker’s cousin Lucas, kidnapped at age five from his native Greece, and found on the eve of his 16th birthday in the US. This story of international parental abduction, filmed for over twenty years, chronicles Lucas’s journey of growth and self-discovery, and culminates with Lucas becoming a father himself. Lost in the Bewilderness is not only a detective story but also a lyrical meditation on childhood, lost and found, and an exploration of how the themes of ancient Greek myth and tragedy, with the family at their center, are still very much alive in the modern world.

2014-03-15 | en

Astrapogiannos

The battle-scarred hero of the Greek Revolution, Giannos "Astrapogiannos", returns home after the end of the blood-soaked War of Independence, only to find himself in a new conflict, as he locks horns with a ruthless local Kodjabashis.

1970-09-21 | el

Demirkırat: Pressure

Looking back at the turmoil of the 1950s today, it's hard not to be sad. Even though one knows the end of the story, he is always waiting for something to happen to prevent this bitter ending. He wants the mistakes made to be noticed, a common point to be agreed and the accident that says I am coming to be prevented. But in vain... After the accident today, all we can do is look at the causes of the accident and learn from it... Beginning from the mid-1950s, the democracy, which was knitted stitch by knot before, began to unravel again, stitch by stitch. A tense, harsh, vicious period has opened in the political arena... It seemed impossible to see the future and take precautions in that dusty smoke...

1991-06-18 | tr

The Adventure

In 2011, as tens of thousands of migrants, Loss, and Madess Moussa arrived in Europe via Turkey. Required by EU law to remain in Greece, they only want one thing : to leave. Therefore earn the money needed to start is an obsession and all means are good. The film "The Adventure" follows the lives of these three Ivorians to Athens - their sense of enclosure, strategies to find money, failover illegally, attempts to start - and explores what is at stake, individually and collectively during migration: relations to other migrant communities, friendship, betrayal, solidarity, mafias and violence.

2013-01-01 | en

12 March: Raid

Revolutionaries passed before the streets of the 1960s on the road to democracy. Then the use of victory songs and rebellion flags, right-wingers, leftists and putschists again. The February 22nd Operation could not revolutionize, but it succeeded in overthrowing its government. Unexpectedly, because of an amnesty... İnönü kept Talat Aydemir's forgiveness by making a promise to him when he received him and drafting a law. But when this structure came to the Parliament, the AP members revolted. They also asked for the ex-Democrats to be pardoned. They said "all or nothing". It's a mess. When the AP insisted, İnönü resigned. Thus, without doing much work, Turkey's first settlement was dissolved in six months. İnönü was brought to the head of the new crime again. However, this time, EP was excluded and a second provision government was formed with CHP, YTP and CKMP. And the winds blowing from Kayseri would continue to sweep Ankara more...

1994-04-24 | tr

12 Mart: "Demir-El"

By the end of 1963, the word coup was no longer spoken in Turkey. Talat Aydemir is history, the last tremors of the May 27 earthquake have passed and the sliding faults of the regime have begun to settle into place. In this transition period, which lasted more than four years, the person who managed to get the ship to the port without running aground was İsmet İnönü. He ruled for four troubled years in a country torn between armed uprisings, Cyprus crises, coalition governments and regime debates. But meanwhile, he was also worn out. In the local elections held at the end of 1963, while the CHP's votes remained at 37 percent, the AP found 45 percent. But on the very day of the final election results, a few gunshots heard from across the Atlantic turned everything upside down...

1994-05-01 | tr

We Never Said Goodbye To You Varosha

Varosha, the only city on the world without people, the loneliest city... Varosha is a province in Cyprus that is closed with fences and unpopulated since 1974.

2013-11-14 | en

Beloved Days

In 1970 the people of Karmi in Cyprus participate in an unprecedented experience: the shooting of the film "Beloved", with Hollywood cast and crew. This documentary functions as a kaleidoscope, transmitting images of that magical time and of the traumatic changes in their lives after the Turkish invasion. Four decades later, they revisit nostalgically those old beloved days.

2015-08-22 | el