Fani Alexaki

Summer in an Athenian neighborhood, the alarm of a car does not leave their neighbors in peace. But every one has its own problems. Infidelity, robbery, jealousy, flirtation, and family reconciliation on corpses, all pour forth into five intertwined stories

Chronis, Vaillia and Elftheria are not "IN." They are not featured in glossy magazines. They don't have perfect bodies, they don't make love on the first date. These three characters will cross paths.

Three stories dealing with three men and their stance towards life, given their personal background. All stories are held in Northern Greece (Macedonia and Thrace), covering all the spectrum from urban to rural settings.

"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?

Four episodes, four instances from a man’s life covering 25 years, from 1965 in Germany to 1990 in Athens. The episodes seem to be irrelevant to one another, yet they all focus on male powerplay, reveal the self-consciousness and moderation of the protagonist’s idiosyncrasy and depict some special aspects of the Greek male mentality. Probably Nikos Panayotopoulos’ most personal film, covering a substantial period of his generation’s years, “I’m dreaming of my friends” is based on the book by Dimitris Nollas, looks a lot like a “road movie” and features an all-male cast, as if there’s no room for women in it.

In this supernatural-themed romance, a German woman in the between-wars period is being initiated into some kind of esoteric/psychic order and learns at that time that her ideal mate won't even be born for quite a few years. By 1936, she has moved to Greece with her Greek husband, and there she meets Alberto, a very young Greek man, a Jew, who is evidently the man she has been seeking. They are able to read each other's thoughts and do so in the midst of a sexual encounter. Despite the boy's attraction to her, he spurns her due to her age (she is forty). She commits suicide and is born almost immediately as someone able to protect her ideal mate from the Germans. Later, as a young woman, she again has a liaison with Alberto, who again spurns her due to their age differences. Flashbacks indicate that this situation has been part of their lives for many incarnations.

Something changes in the relationship of Achilleas and Anna when she starts to dream vividly and insists on relating her dreams to her husband. He is a barrister in the middle of an important murder trial and his temper becomes frayed with Anna's seeming indifference and involvement and preoccupation with her dream world.

A family story of incest, decadence and desolation. Greece, early twentieth century. A bourgeois family is on the verge of breaking up. The mother has abandoned the family, and the father, a retired officer, keeps his three daughters, as well as the illegitimate son of the oldest daughter, confined in the house. After his death, the three sisters live through their personal drama. The eldest, Eleni, imbued with the morals of the time and closely identifying with her father, tries to take his place. The middle one, Maria, representing rebellion, goes off with a captain of the sanitation service, while the youngest, Anna, skating on thin ice through all this, is completely destroyed.

With the youthful remembrance of the mysterious beauty he used to secretly admire from afar still etched in his mind, a young man will unexpectedly spot a dead ringer of her and attempt to appease his long-suppressed feelings.

An actor's troupe puts up a variety show.

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.