A still of Landscape in the Mist

As the last film of the “trilogy of silence” by Theodoros Angelopoulos, the Landscape in the Mist tells a cruel fable about search and growth, and features Angelopoulos’ iconic smooth long lens that are extremely delicate and aesthetically pleasing, and the Angelopoulos-style handling of time and space. The recurring mythological elements in it are very common in his other works as well. The film has won the Silver Lion at the Venice International Film Festival, the European Film of the Year at the European Film Awards, and other awards at global film festivals, making it one of the director’s most recognized representative works.

“How long does tomorrow last?” “An eternity and a day.”

As the final installment in the Balkan Trilogy, the film has won the Golden Palm at the Festival de Cannes. The unique style of Angelopoulos is even more skillful. Extremely poetic images, a mixture of memory and reality, the characters’ search for the meaning of life and wandering are slowly flowing out under the soundtrack by Greek famous composer Eleni Karaindrou (the music of another two films in this section was also composed by her).

Prior to winning the Golden Lion, Yorgos Lanthimos became famous in the international market by virtue of this film, which won the Jury Prize at the Festival de Cannes. The plot setting is very attractive even when we see it now: Singles are guilty, and people staying single for 45 days will become an animal, but can choose what animal to become. As a fantastic black fable, The Lobster has put forward an excellent reflection on intimacy.

Her Job is the first feminist-themed feature film written and directed by Nikos Labôt. Based on a true story, it tells a story of a woman who has found a whole new self through a simple job as a janitor. By focusing on a woman's struggle to regain her autonomy, the film depicted a cross-section of the Greek social landscape, and also reflected the far-reaching consequences of the financial and social crisis sweeping across contemporary Greece.

As a psychological thriller, it abandoned suspense setting or twist foreshadowing in traditional genre films, but got the audience stuck in an anti-climax way. The unique style of the film is greatly attributed to the versatile director, Michalis Konstantatos. His artistic interests cover theater, experimental short films, video installations in public spaces, music videos, etc. Through social observation and research, the director focused on the double life of “heaven” and “earth” of an ordinary couple with a handheld camera.

Magnetic Fields is the first feature film of Giorgos Goussis, a Greek film director and comic book artist. The script was jointly completed by him and the starring actor and actress, Antonis Tsiotsiopoulos and Elena Topalidou. The shooting of the film began in December 2020, when the starring actor and actress and six crew members, carrying a simple synopsis and a MiniDV camera, left Athens for Kefalonia Island, and made this road movie about two persons (and the creator himself) traveling alone in an improvised way. They are improvised, free and easy, and having fun without purpose.

In this golden September, let’s meet in the BJIFF to feel colorful Greece in the light and shadow in face of the sea breeze of the Mediterranean.