Constantine Giannaris

Inspired by the real-life story of a bus hijacking in Northern Greece, HOSTAGE explores the sensitive issue of Greek-Albanian relations through a young Albanian who takes over an intercity bus. Upon hijacking the bus, he takes the seven passengers hostage and demands a ransom of half and million euro, and safe passage to his homeland of Albania. Surrounded by police, the bus trundles towards the Albanian border and the tension mounts until the final harrowing conclusion.

Middle August in Athens. Three families, living in a three storey building, leave for their summer vacations. Everyone is wishing for a miracle to happen this summer. In the meantime, a drifter breaks into their apartments and rummages their personal belongings, thus unfolding hidden secrets.

Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.

Contemporary Athens: A gang of teenage thieves and romantic anarchists test the limits of their youthful rebellion and play out their own tragic spring awakening against the backdrop of a dying city.

Minority-group Greeks from an outer suburb of Athens struggle with their life on society's fringe and exploitation of one another.

A bereaved woman adopts multiple disguises to track down the last three people to see her boyfriend before he died.

A brief look at the life of the Greek poet Constantine Cavafy.

Collection of music videos by Jimmy Somerville, both as solo artist as well as with the bands Bronski Beat and The Communards.

A gay poet heads west from New York City in his convertible. He picks up a muscular sailor who's bisexual; then Jackie, a waitress at a diner, joins them. Jackie is attracted to the poet who rebuffs her romantic gestures; rejection fuels her continued interest in him. The sailor and the poet are bonded by sex, but the sailor's frank advances to Jackie make him uninteresting to her. The sailor can get violent, the poet is passive, Jackie is glamorous and detached. The landscape changes, they stop in cities and in the desert. They reach a lake. Who will be left out of a final pairing?

Caught Looking sees a lonely gay man attempt to explore his sexual fantasies with the help of an interactive computer game, guiding his virtual reality persona through a series of potential encounters (naval rough trade, a moustachioed 'clone', a 50s muscle man) while offering wry commentary on the shifting landscape of queer cruising. But is it love he’s really looking for?

A contemporary married couple and their eight-year-old son are exposed to our observation. The husband, around 35, works as a tax specialist for an import-export firm. His 30-year-old wife looks after their child and their home. The man's impending promotion at work triggers their dreams of social advancement and financial improvement. As their plain everyday life unfolds the characters are denuded to reveal their different needs and desires which render their functioning and communication increasingly hard. The man's inability to meet the escalating demands of his social circle and those of his wife brings tension into their relationship and leads to the culmination of the drama. The unexpected as well as extreme solution given by the heroine leads both the hero and the viewer to redefine reality on the basis of how things look and how they really are.

A look at “Greek love” and the reality of homosexuality in Greece in 1991. Leaders of the once-called GLBT movement (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender) or simply people who dared to stand in front of the camera and speak about their lives, paint us a clear portrait – a bigger picture that might not have changed much in the last three decades.

Three short films from Greece's greatest filmaker with Introduction to each by the filmaker: Caught Looking, Noth of Votrex, A place in the Sun.

Alex a captain with sad past saves thirty teens Afghan refugees. With tension constantly increasing, Alex tries to tackle the company's and crew pressures.

The Tuntenhaus or "House of Queers" was originally a squat on Mainzer Str. in East Berlin. This gritty verité documentary follows the fortunes of the Tuntenhaus through the days of anarchy and riots that followed German reunification to the sudden invasion by 3000 West German police, armed with tanks and tear gas in a massive operation to evict them.

Young men find themselves scattered and defencelessly exposed to a merciless sun. Their gaze moves off searchingly into the distance. Deserted places appear to offer vague promises of refuge. On a prison wall, an explosive image of desire emerges, full of hope for freedom.

Ilias, a young man of Athens, meets Panagiotis, a new-comer from Albania and falls in love with him. He pays dearly for the relationship.