Writing
Best friends Miriam and Gloria, born in Athens to West African parents, are rising stars of a junior women’s basketball team. Their shared dream of a brighter future through basketball is challenged by their statelessness and lack of Greek citizenship. Spanning four transformative years, Home Court captures their resilience, friendship, and fight to belong against all odds.
A cinematic journey into the heart of the Europe through the life-changing experience of young participants of Erasmus - the most ambitious mobility programme of our times. The film’s characters leave the comfort zone of their country, to prove to themselves that they can survive in a foreign environment, overcoming their fears and adapting to different cultures and mentalities. Set against the current European crisis, fueled by unprecedented youth unemployment and fears about the refugee situation, their journeys offer a bird’s-eye view of a continent in transition, giving a sense of what the future holds.
As well as providing the subject for Luc Besson’s The Big Blue, Jacques Mayol did more than anyone to establish the sport of free diving to enormous depths without an oxygen supply. Using breathing techniques derived from yoga, he went to 50, 60, and even 100 meters—depths no one had considered to be within the bounds of human possibility. Mayol was a sportsman, a mystic, a vagabond, but above all, a man who believed in testing the limits of experience. This visually stunning tribute shows a man’s quest to be at one with the vastness of the ocean and to have no fear of the abyss within, where lurks serenity, freedom and finally, death.
In the land of the Zapatistas, Augusto Pinochet, and Fidel Castro, what are the stories Latin Americans have been telling to confront their troubled past? The film travels to 5 Latin American cities, to meet with famous crime novelists Leonardo Padura (Havana), Luis Sepulveda (Santiago), Paco Ignacio Taibo II (Mexico City), Santiago Roncagliolo (Lima) and Claudia Pineiro (Buenos Aires). Through their stories, we discover a unique genre of flourishing literature, strikingly different from its North American or Nordic counterparts: it's political, dark, and crimes are committed by the state itself.
Kostas, a 75-year-old diver, makes his living raising toxic shipwrecks from a polluted seabed. As the community around him dreams of environmental renewal, an ancient Greek underworld myth resurfaces through a doomed vessel he vows to save. When a long-buried secret from Kostas's past unexpectedly emerges, the mission collapses, triggering an existential reckoning. Moving between ritual, memory, and decay, the film becomes a journey into the shadows of both the natural world and the human soul-where truth, guilt, and the possibility of healing finally surface.
Since the 1970s, lesbians from around the world have been drawn to the island of Lesvos, the birthplace of the ancient Greek poet Sappho. When they find paradise in a local village and carve out their own queer lesbian community, tensions simmer with the local residents. With both groups claiming ownership of lesbian identity, filmmaker Tzeli Hadjidimitriou—a native and lesbian herself—is caught in the middle and chronicles 40+ years of love, community, conflict, and what it means to feel accepted.
A food-loving and scientific tribute to the Mediterranean diet and, not least, the liquid gold: olive oil.
Elias, a small farming village in central Greece, is dying out. But two cousins team up with the village grannies to cultivate the tomato seeds they have kept for hundreds of years. With a little help from Wagner’s music –which they use to help their tomatoes grow– the team succeeds to export little jars with organic tomato recipes across the world. The film follows the protagonists of this unlikely quest, as they struggle to survive and make their dream come true. Humorous and bittersweet, this is a story about the importance of reinventing oneself in times of crisis and the power of human relationships.
An Inspirational film about the power of family and music, told through the lives if Greece's most famous musical clan, from the island of Crete. The film captures the Xylouris family at crossroads: fifty - year old Giorgis performs non-stop to satisfy his passionate fans, while his Australian wife and manager Shelagh, struggles to keep the family together. Their three children find new freedom abroad, but struggle to uphold the music of their homeland, while finding their own voice. 'A Family Affair' reveals how this age-old and little known musical tradition is passed on from father to son to grandchildren. it brings to light the redemptive but also obstructive power of a strong family, while bringing us closer to the intimate process of the creation of music.
