Greece

FROM THE SNOW

CREDITS 

35mm – Colore - 90’

Direction: Sotiris Goritsas
Script: Sotiris Goritsas
Photography: Stamatis Giannoulis
Music: Nikos Kypourgos
Editing: Takis Koumoundouros
Sets & Costumes: Youla Zoiopoulou
Cast: Gerassimos Skiadaressis, Vassilis Eleftheriadis, Antonis Manolas, Mania Papadimitriou.
Production: Hyperion SA, Greek Film Centre, Sotiris Goritsas

SYNOPSIS

"Thomas and I made up our minds. Tonight we're leaving for Greece. Where are we going? To the homeland, says I. To disaster, says Thomas and laughs." So begins the hellish descent of three refugees, members of the Greek minority of Northern Epirus in Albania, "from the snow" to the depths of Omonia Square in Athens. There they will face hunger, the evaporation of the vision, the first symptoms of modern Athenians' latent -but unconfessed - racism. "In Albania they call us Greeks and in Greece Albanians..." Thomas tells Achilles a little before the end. When he meets a totally untimely and senseless death his companion decides to return to the snow. There, at least, one can hang on to one's dreams.

THE DIRECTOR: SOTIRIS GORITSAS

Sotiris Goritsas is a dynamic filmmaker whose work stands out amongst Greece's new wave of feature film directors of the 1990s.
Born in Athens in 1955, Goritsas studied economics at the University of Athens and film at the London International Film School. Between 1985 and 1988 he directed twenty-five documentaries for Greek television, as well as television commercials.
He directed his first telefilm Someone Keeps Vigil in 1987. It was followed in 1990 by Despina, a medium-length feature film, which received the Best Film Award in the Thessaloniki Film Festival of the same year. The feature From the Snow followed in 1993, gaining awards in the same year at the Amien, Troia and Thessaloniki Film Festivals (in the latter, in both the national and international sections) and the 1994 Directors' Fortnight at Cannes. His 1997 feature Balkanisateur has met with acclaim in Greece and abroad.
Goritsas is now working on his new feature Braziliero.

FILMOGRAPHY

2006 Pals
2001 Brazileiro
1997 Balkanisateur - Valkanizater
1993 From the snow - Ap'to Hioni
1990 Despina

SELECTED FESTIVAL AND AWARDS

1993 Cannes International Film Festival in concorso
1993 Golden Alexandros (Best Film), FIPRESCI - International Critics' Prize, Best Script, Best Cinematography at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival
1994 Best Director at the Troia International Film Festival
1994 Best Film (Licorne d'Or) Amiens International Film Festival