Matheo Yamalakis

A short film about a young man's revolt against compulsion and discipline.

The main characters of this film are some habitants of Athens, that i met either on purpose or by chance. Between them two politicians, a taxi driver, a mother with her small baby and her family, two whores, two activist actresses, the mother of one man who hanged up by the Nazi party.

A subjective film about a big city. The city tells, the filmmaker reproduces the stories in his personal vintage.

A satirical mockumentary in the form of an instruction video for stock brokers.

“The difference between a computer and people is absurdity”: this phrase, one of the first heard in Matheo Yamalakis’s film, is the key to a documentary that unfolds like a joyful revelation. Yamalakis was a sensitive filmmaker whose oeuvre is still largely unfamiliar to the inquiring viewer. His camera wanders around Ios in the summer of 1976, freely, almost associatively recording aspects of a Greek island perched on the cusp between a traditional, pre-modern world and a sweeping shift in mores. Therein lies the absurd, bitter comicality of this perceptive portrayal of the island’s microsociety, which covers everyone: grotesque local dignitaries, storytelling taverna jokesters, cunning small shopkeepers, naïve tourists, young women crushed by the small-mindedness of provincial life. All are woven together in the most effortless, tenderest way, crafting a kaleidoscopic portrait of the Greek archipelago, timeless in its conception and power.

A personal documentary on Crete, its people and its history. About the ongoing tourist exploitation and the broken promises by politicians.

About my exhibition in Athens, and an art discussion with four policemen.