Greek Producers Bring Top Buzz Titles to EFM

Christopher Vourlias
·3 min read
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Since the launch of its cash rebate in 2018, which covers up to 40% of qualifying expenditures along with 30% in tax relief, Greece has become one of Europe’s hottest filming destinations. But domestic production is surging as well, and the industry reached new heights in 2022, with the rebate scheme supporting 132 international and domestic projects.

Here’s a round-up of some of the top Greek feature films currently in the pipeline:

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Buzzheart (pictured, top)
Director: Dennis Iliadis
Producers: Amanda Livanou, Dennis Iliadis
The veteran director, who helmed the 2007 remake of Wes Craven’s “The Last House on the Left,” returns with a film that asks: If you had to make sure that someone could truly love without any moral limitations, how far would you go?
Sales: N/A

My Soul Startled
Director: Syllas Tzoumerkas
Producers: Maria Drandaki, Nadia Trevisan, Julie Paratian
The acclaimed director returns with 18 interwoven love stories of gods, titans, nuns, madmen, Americans and suicidal girls set in the wildest corners of the Aegean Sea.
Sales: N/A

Baby
Director: Nikos Kyritsis
Producers: Maria Drandaki, Kyveli Short
A Berlinale Talent Project Market selection at this year’s EFM, this debut feature follows teenage Zackarias who, saddled with his newborn, struggles with fatherhood and bringing his family back together, while navigating overwhelming Athens, away from his rural home.
Sales: N/A

Riviera
Director: Orfeas Peretzis
Producer: Konstantinos Vassilaros
This narrative feature debut follows a girl’s last summer in the Athenian Riviera, looking to overcome a world that’s disintegrating.
Sales: N/A

Riviera
“Riviera” follows a girl’s last summer on the Athenian seaside.

The Future is an Elder Cow
Director: Janis Rafa
Producers: Giorgos Karnavas, Konstantinos Kontovrakis
A visual artist whose feature directorial debut premiered at Rotterdam, Rafa’s sophomore effort is set in a world ravaged by infertility, where rumors spread that women have started giving birth to animals.
Sales: Heretic

Patrimonial Fears and Other Symptoms
Director: Elina Psykou
Producers: Maria Drandaki, Konstantinos Vassilaros
The third feature from the Tribeca award-winning director follows three generations of men, each confronting private fears that they hope will vanish when the magician David Copperfield arrives in Athens to make the Acropolis disappear.
Sales: N/A

Music
Director: Angela Schanelec
Producer: Kirill Krasovski
Bowing in the international competition at this year’s Berlinale, the latest from the Berlin Silver Bear winner follows the life of a man who was abandoned at birth in a story inspired by the ancient Greek myth of Oedipus.
Sales: Shellac

Music
Angela Schanelec’s “Music” plays in competition in Berlin.

Inside
Director: Vasilis Katsoupis 
Producers: Giorgos Karnavas, Konstantinos Kontovrakis, Marcos Kantis, Dries Phlypo
Willem Dafoe stars in this Berlin Panorama player about a high-end art thief who gets trapped in a New York penthouse — and has to use his cunning to find a way out — when his heist doesn’t go as planned.
Sales: Bankside

Glory B
Director: Konstantinos Antonopoulos
Producers: Fani Skartouli, Birgit Kemner
The winner of last year’s TorinoFilmLab Production Award follows a dethroned emperor and a humble beekeeper trying to escape the desert island where they’ve been shipwrecked.
Sales: N/A

Arcadia
Director: Yorgos Zois
Producers: Antigoni Rota, Maria Drandaki, Stelios Cotionis
The director of Venice premiere “Interruption” returns with the story of a separation that didn’t happen in life but may happen in the afterlife.
Sales: N/A

Cora
Director: Evi Kalogiropoulou
Producers: Amanda Livanou, Bertrand Gore, Nathalie Mesuret
The feature debut of the visual artist, whose short film “On Xerxes’ Throne” won a prize at Cannes’ Critics Week last year, follows two working-class women fighting for freedom and their own identity against a dystopian patriarchal society.
Sales: Playtime

Little Death
Director: Efthimis Kosemund Sanidis
Producer: Yorgos Tsourgiannis
After his short films premiered at prestigious fests including Venice, Locarno and Clermont-Ferrand, Sanidis’ anticipated debut follows the unexpected love that finds a debt-saddled young man who crosses the sea to claim the inheritance left by his long-estranged father.
Sales: N/A

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