Andreas Sinanos

Commissioned to mark the 60th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival, "To Each His Own Cinema" brought together 33 of the world's pre-eminent filmmakers to produce short pieces exploring the multifarious facets of cinema and their perspective on the state of their chosen artform in the early 21st century.

Famous writer Alexander contracts a terminal illness. He receives a letter from his wife describing a summer day 30 years ago, and leaves his seaside home to remember his past. This journey will allow him to wander between the past and the present, and encounter unexpected people, allowing him to collect unforgettable memories in the final moments of his life.

An exiled filmmaker finally returns to his home country where former mysteries and afflictions of his early life come back to haunt him once more.

When Lady Winsley, the famous American novelist, is discovered dead on the remote Turkish island of Büyükada, the great detective Fergün is sent from Istanbul to solve the murder case. With the help of Azra, the beautiful local hotel tenant, he must confront stubborn members of the island community to untangle well-guarded family secrets and discover who the murderer is.

To trace the fading past of his parents, a grizzled Greek-American filmmaker decides to shoot a movie. By recounting the painful efforts of his mother to reunite with his musician father, his film spans more than half of the 20th century.

The story follows a family of refugees from the early twentieth century through to the Civil War. Through movements, separations, and reunions, personal lives intersect with Greece’s major historical transformations. Space and time are in constant flux, while the characters remain trapped in an unending search for a homeland.

A reporter notices an old man in a border town who may be an important Greek politician who disappeared mysteriously years ago.

Nihat, an introverted employee in a hospital cafeteria, is confused by Ayşe, a mysterious woman who just started working there as a dishwasher. Her obvious seductive approaches embarrass Nihat and make him nervous at the same time. Despite the rumors about her husband having been sentenced to many years in jail, Nihat reluctantly accepts Ayşe’s invitation to dinner at her house. This is the beginning of a strange and dangerous liaison. When Nihat discovers a picture of the woman’s husband and realizes that he looks astoundingly like him, the relation becomes even more toxic.

Derviş Zaim turns his camera into a tragedy in Syria this time and reminds once again the value of telling stories. Flash memory is from a true story; It is inspired by a Syrian military officer secretly taking out 11,000 photographs documenting the regime's violence against civilians and opponents. Losing his ability to speak as a result of an attack, Ahmet starts working in a unit where people who died in conflicts are photographed and recorded. He wants to announce what he sees to the world, and to give voice to stories stuck in war. He has to choose between protecting himself and his wife or fulfilling his responsibility to humanity.

Michael falls in love with an American woman while borrowing his cousin's apartment, but the discovery of the contents of her suitcases gets them involved with the police, among other troubles.

A tableaux of poetry and images exploring the historical trauma, identity, and collective memory of the Armenian people centered on an Armenian filmmaker exiled in Berlin.

Asli, a young mother who is trying to find a nanny to get back to work, finally meets young Gulnihal. Gulnihal is also a mother. With Gulnihal coming into her life, Asli faces her secrets which she has been avoiding herself.

The residents of a small town set between a stormy sea and an ominous forest are becoming insane. They are convinced that successive signs appearing in the town are indications of doomsday.

Still Burning tells the unexpected reunion in Paris in June 1998 of André, a Lebanese filmmaker living and working in France, and Walid, the very close friend he has not seen for years. In their youth, in Beirut, during the civil war, they were both possessed by the same artistic vocation: Cinema, but also by the same woman: Amira. Their reunion, all night long, will not fail to awaken their old repressed demons for better or for worse.

A widow reminisces on her life after returning to her family home in Greece.

Centres on two brothers, Stelios and Yannis. The impulsive Stelios skips their small town, deserts from the army, and is thought dead, until Yannis, now a city cop, recognizes his name on the papers of an illegal immigrant seaman. He begins a search for his lost brother, a search that takes him across many borders: between past and present, between Greece and its neighbouring countries, between one identity and another.

At the times of World War II, accomplished painter and translator Aram flees Istanbul due to political offenses. When he is trapped at the USSR-Georgia borders, his flight turns into a remembrance of things past...

Returning to her small town, Anna, the widow of an Italian soldier whom she married during the occupation, revives her old teenage love in the face of a young worker, whom she marries with her stepdaughter, in order to keep him close to her. At the same time, a neighbour tries by all means to take her house to build a hotel.

Living on his own under a modest roof, Sami makes a living as a mural painter. One day, he learns that his doting grandmother has passed away and left him a small chest full of calligraphy materials. At first, Sami rather dismisses the contents of the chest, so much so that he even considers getting rid of them. But then he meets Selma at the library where he has been commissioned to do a mural, and the introduction marks a turning point for him. Selma, an attractive and dignified woman with the impeccable manners of an old Istanbul family, once took up calligraphy herself. With her guidance and encouragement, Sami embarks on learning the practice of calligraphy. He is helped in his endeavours by Esref Efendi, a gifted but demanding old-generation calligrapher, whose distaste for the present state of calligraphy has deterred him from taking on students for some time. And the master is quick to steer Sami towards love.

A prosperous widow with a gay son falls for a young gym instructor in Athens.