Self
"The Poor Hunter of the South" is the title of the film Stavros Tornes never got to make, rightfully featured alongside his name on this documentary by Stavros Kaplanidis ("Canteen", "Play it Again, Christos"). The film traces his imagery, listens for his whispers and infiltrates the memories of his closest friends, looking for clues in order to piece together the portrait of a filmmaker who made something out of nothing and stayed true to himself and his vision until the very end. Besides Tornes' own films, this documentary includes footage from films where the "poor hunter" appeared as an actor, like "The Secret of the Red Cloak" by Kostas Fotinos, "Kierion" by Dimos Theos and " Allonsanfan" by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani.
Original Story
It is the third film in a row of the type that much later on was called "fustanella (Greek kilt)", following Gkolfo by Bachatoris (1914) and Astero by Gaziadis (1929). It is based on the successful theatrical play (rhyming pastoral romance) by Dimitrios Koromilas, who draws his inspiration from a poem by Giannis Zalokostas "I fell in love with a shepherdess". The setting is Greece, a rural country in the middle of the 19th century. A landlord, Mitros, gives Kroustallo a golden cross as a gift to show her his tender feelings. He doesn't know, however, that she is already in love with Liakos, a destitute young shepherd to whom Mitros owes his life - in the past he had saved him from drowning in the river. The cross around the neck of the shepherdess causes fights between the two men, while Mitros asks Kroustallo's hand from her mother, Mrs. Stathaina, who had been his childhood love.
