Sponge Catchers

A sad story about a series of tragic events which happened in Greece during the seventies.

The film tells about the inhabitants of the Russian city of Tsaritsyn-Stalingrad-Volgograd. The film consists of three novellas, united by the theme of love and the scene - a city on the Volga.

Based on an excerpt from the novel by L.N.Tolstoy "War and Peace." The war of 1812. The defeated Napoleonic army is retreating. Three Russian soldiers settled in a snowy forest near a fire: a young (Zaletayev), an elderly and a middle-aged one. Zaletayev fantasizes — as if he had captured Napoleon. The soldiers laugh good-naturedly at him. After dinner, they fall asleep... Two Frenchmen go to the clearing — an officer and a soldier. Russian soldiers wake up and, seeing that the officer is barely standing on his feet from cold and hunger, take him to the colonel. The French soldier sits down to the fire. The Russians give him porridge and vodka. The soldier, encouraged, sings a french song. Zaletayev echoes him. A tired Frenchman falls asleep on Zaletayev’s shoulder. The soldiers carefully shelter him. “Also people,” an elderly soldier says with a sigh.

Georges Pradier, a Parisian journalist on his way to make a movie, agrees to give an Algerian man a ride in his car at the request of an acquaintance. He discovers that the bag his passenger is carrying contains forty-four million francs collected for a fund to help the struggling Algeria.

Poet Lord Byron decides to fight with the Greek revolutionaries in Missolonghi against the Turks but instead the glorious battle wrestles with fever and his own demons.

The story of Greek patriots' struggle against the Nazi invaders in May 1941, when German troops landed on the island of Crete. Fleeing the Germans, seven people, completely different in their views and personalities, come together: communist Memos, who has escaped from prison; military doctor Kimon, fleeing from the hospital; nurse Alika and nurse Krinjo, a gendarme; and two soldiers—a Greek and a New Zealander who has fallen behind.

Bela Frankl, a young Hungarian, is taken prisoner by Russia during the First World War, defects to the side of the revolution and some time later, under the pseudonym Mate Zalka, becomes a famous Soviet writer. In 1936, having arrived as a volunteer in Spain, he becomes General Lukacs, forms the 12th International Brigade of non-professional fighters and takes the first heavy battles with Franco's cadre formations...

A young, stubborn and undisciplined man goes to serve in the army, where he will understand the need for military service...

A Turkish man decides in 1947 to illegally visit the Greek north-eastern mountains at Thrace in order to fight in the Greek Civil War on the side of the Greek Guerrillas (Communists). Today, at the age of 92, he makes a journey back to Greece where he fought to visit again the battle fields.

Soviet journalist Ksenia Troitskaya meets Greek film director Memos Yanidis in Moscow, where he is working on an anti-fascist film. As they stroll along the Arbat, they dream of one day meeting again at the corner of Arbat and Bouboulina Street in Athens. But upon returning to his homeland, Memos is imprisoned.

The film was shot by the DSE (Democratic Army of Greece) in 1948. The filming took place in Grammos and Vitsi, an area that the DSE had under its control during most of the Civil War (the so-called "Free Greece") and in the adjacent communist countries, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. It was first shown in Hungary and then in the other member countries of the "communist Paradise". The original film, which was considered lost for many years, was located in Hungary a few years ago. The subject of the film is "Child-Rescue" (or "Child-Rescue" as the KKE calls it).