31st Greek Film Festival 15-18 October at Palace Nova cinemas Prospect

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The 31st Greek Film Festival, to be held at Palace Nova cinemas Prospect from the 15th to the 18th of October, is an initiative of the Greek Orthodox Community of South Australia as part of the Odyssey Greek Festival. This year’s programme features new films from Greece and Cyprus offering a variety of films for everyone.

The opening night gala at the Palace Nova cinemas Prospect on Thursday 15th of  October starts at 6.30 pm before a special screening of Best Friends Forever at 7.00 pm. This is a dramatic comedy which questions how far you would go for friendship and how many unexpected turns could follow from simply trying to help. 

Screening on 16th of October is I Was A Stranger, where a Syrian Doctor is forced to flee Aleppo with her young daughter. One desperate choice sets off a chain of events that ripples across borders and pulls four strangers into the same storm : a smuggler trying to save his son, a soldier wrestling with his conscience, a poet searching for home, a Greek Coast Guard captain caught between duty and mercy. 

Their paths collide on one night in the Mediterranean where survival is uncertain and humanity is revealed in its rawest form. I Was A Stranger is a tense, deeply human story about the lengths people will go to protect the ones they love. 

Screening on Saturday 17th October is Receptions which depicts the uncompromising honest and unemployed journalist Dimos Perpataris, a specialist in ancient Greek sayings who would rather starve than betray his principles. But his encounter with ‘Dexiosakides’, a carefree group with no moral scruples who sneak into events to eat free, changes everything.

True to his human centred filmmaking and tragicomic style, and drawing inspiration from the absurdity of real life (as well as from the book of the same name), Filippos Tsitos returns with a provocative question: ‘How much of your dignity are you willing to sacrifice in order not to go hungry?

Also screening on Saturday 17th October is another comedy, Rooster, which explores the story of Argyris Mavranganis, a door man at the Municipality of Athens, who learns that his son has been selected to attend one of the best private schools in the country. This news will mark the most defining summer of his life placing further strain on his already troubled relationship with his wife Popi. Driven by his ambitions for the future of his six-year-old son, Argyris sets out to make it big, throwing himself passionately into the pursuit of the Greek dream but when his obsessive efforts fail, he is forced into conflict with everyone around him. 

Screening twice on Sunday 18th of October is Saint Paisios, the story of Saint Paisios or also known as Arsenios Eznepidis.

After being uprooted from Farasa of Cappadocia as refugees, the family of young Arsenios settles in Konitsa, Epirus where he grows up with his mother and grandmother who passes on to him their deep faith in Christ as well as their love for all people. Fast forward to many years later, his time in Mount Athos and his move to Filotheos monastery played a Catholic catalytic role in his religious journey. 

Eventually he sends a photograph of himself to his mother bidding her farewell and telling her that from then on the Virgin Mary will be his mother. He no longer signs using the name Arsenios but Paisios. 

Closing the Adelaide Greek Film Festival on Sunday 18th of October is Hold onto Me. It’s summer and an 11-year-old Iris is running wild through the streets with her older friend Danae when she learns her estranged father Aris, is back in town for his own father’s funeral. Determined to know him, Iris tracks him down to a dilapidated shipyard where he’s been keeping to himself. What begins as a stubborn attempt to reconnect slowly unfolds into a fragile bond. 

More information about the 31st Greek Film Festival and ticket details are available here: