Return to Homeland

Island of Imvros, 2005-2009. The documentary portrays the lives, the voices, the moments that have passed; the everyday life of people who never left their land. It presents the dreams that people continue to foster for a homeland that they were deprived of, that was violently taken from them, that was devastated. Memories, dreams, sacrifices, suffering, nostalgia, life. All these unfold through the stories of the heroes. It is their homeland that they are looking for in the rubble. It is their lives that they want to recreate. It is their dreams that they wish to be revived.

Hortiatis is one of the numerous Greek villages whose inhabitants were massacred during the German occupation during World War II. The documentary attempts a “reenactment” of the Hortiatis holocaust through the first-hand testimony of eye-witnesses, while underscoring the significance of the preservation of historical memory. The unfolding of events is shaped by official sources and through individual perspectives and personal experiences of common people, shedding new light on these historic events.

In an apartment in the center of Thessaloniki, Maria and her mother Vaya live together, struggling with the passage of time and the loss of memory. Vaya's descent into dementia turns their relationship into a daily ritual of caregiving. A difficult everyday life, which the two women face with humor and tenderness.