A FAMILY AFFAIR
January 9 at 3:30
East Building Auditorium
The Xylouris Ensemble, a multigenerational family of musicians rooted in folkloric Cretan music, traces their lineage to the mountain village of Anogeia. A Family Affair not only follows their performances and trials during wearisome tours, it captures the passing of tradition from father to son to grandchildren in this family that now lives mainly in Australia. “We don’t carry this tradition as a family weight,” explains George Xylouris. “It’s part of our lives, of who we are. We need this tradition to live, like we need oxygen.” (Angeliki Aristomenopoulou, 2015, DCP, subtitles, 88 minutes)
LITTLE ENGLAND
January 16 at 2:30
East Building Auditorium
Women on the lush Cycladic island of Andros in the 1930s await the homecoming of their seafaring husbands, fathers, sons, and brothers. Within this provincial society, a richly structured melodrama emerges around two sisters’ relationships with the same man. Inspired by a popular novel by Ioanna Karystiani (who also wrote the script), Little England is visually lavish — a fresco of raging sea and rustic landscape, recalling an earlier era of narrative filmmaking. Since the 1960s, director Pantelis Voulgaris has been a leading figure in sparking the recent wave of newly energized filmmaking. (Pantelis Voulgaris, 2013, DCP, subtitles, 132 minutes)
CHEVALIER
January 24 at 4:00
East Building Auditorium
Six men on a yacht in the Aegean begin trading anecdotes that sound suspiciously like fish stories. They agree to play a game: while on the boat they will engage in a manhood-measuring contest for the duration of the trip, judging each man in a variety of categories. At the end, the best man will collect a victory ring — the chevalier. This latest allegorical feature from Athina Rachel Tsangari delves into a shadowy male world of rivalry and aggression. “A committedly deadpan comedy of manners, morals, and men behaving weirdly boasts a contained conceit seemingly ripe for unfettered absurdism” — Guy Lodge. (Athina Rachel Tsangari, 2015, DCP, subtitles, 99 minutes)
XENIA
February 7 at 4:00
East Building Auditorium
Two brothers meet in Athens for a road trip to Thessaloniki, where they hope to track down their estranged biological father — a Greek who never married their now-deceased Albanian mother. Greece’s entry in the 2014 Oscar competition and Un Certain Regardcompetitor at Festival de Cannes, Xenia mixes madcap humor with compassion and poignancy to present “a sweeping yet precise examination of a country that, like its two young heroes, is in the thick of a difficult transition” — Dimitri Eipides. The word xeniareferences a Greek tradition of hospitality toward strangers, “an appropriate title for a film that gladly accommodates all manner of curiosities, from giant talking rabbits to chest-rug dream sequences to a cameo from venerable Italian pop diva Patty Pravo” — Guy Lodge. (Panos H. Koutras, 2014, DCP, subtitles, 134 minutes)
FOREVER
February 14 at 4:00
East Building Auditorium
Costas, a driver on the Athens rapid transit green line (ISAP), finds himself enamored of Anna, a passenger he notices daily taking his train from Athens to Piraeus. Too wary to reach out, Costas remains content to quietly watch as Anna makes the daily trek to her job as a ticket seller. An unforeseen event finally offers Costas his golden opportunity.Forever’s poetic mood, monochromatic palette, and stylized mise-en-scène establish a sense of place without dialogue. Alluding to the beauty of silent film and one of early cinema’s key motifs — trains — director Manda describes Forever as “an homage to every filmmaker I consider a teacher, from Dreyer and Bresson to Antonioni and Angelopoulos.” (Margarita Manda, 2014, DCP, subtitles, 82 minutes)
SILENT
February 28 at 4:00
East Building Auditorium
Yorgos Gkikapeppas in person
A young opera singer named Dido (Kika Georgiou) is suddenly struck by a mysterious debility that blocks her brain’s circuitry controlling her voice. Forced to return to Greece after living abroad, Dido is convinced her career has ended. She detaches herself from her family and attempts to regain stability, but ultimately finds herself retreating into a darker past as familiar ties break down. “The truth of the matter is that our era ‘speaks’ more than any other. . . . What eventually is said and how liberating that might be is, in fact, the question Silent aims to answer” — YG. (Yorgos Gkikapeppas, 2015, DCP, subtitles, 92 minutes).
Silent was awarded the International Film Critics Award (FIPRESCI) at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival (International Competition) 2015.