There Was No Other Way

In the summer of 2021, a research group scouting for viable sites for development arrives at Armenaki Island, where people live with their own laws and their own moral values, having found happiness in a completely different way of life.

A nurse, a paramedic, a gymnast and her coach offer a service for hire wherein they stand in for dead people by appointment, hired by relatives, friends or colleagues of the deceased, to assist with the grieving process.

Athens 1966. Dimitris, 13, unexpectedly loses his father. Seeing his pampered mother collapse, the boy gets carried away and decides to skip childhood in order to stand by her. When he feels ready, he has to claim his mother back from an up-and-coming star of the military regime. A brutal coming-of-age story, where Dimitris reacts in vengeance, changing thus the course of Greek history...

M is a woman Who lives alone. She suffers from insomnia and she needs someone to sleep with her. The process is the following: she finds different people to sleep with each time. She wants the touch of another body in her bed.

For 26 years (1972–1998), Swiss dentist Julien Grivel treated Hansenites (lepers) free of charge in Greece. An inner journey that helped him see the world and life differently. “By adopting the language of the Greeks, I unconsciously adopted their thinking,” he says. His friendship with ex-hansenite Manolis Fountoulakis was a catalyst.

‘Each person we meet in the course of our life is a journey and we often feel the need to travel with them first class or without luggage and empty pockets’. Alekos Zoukas is a darling man, fun-loving and at the same time a deep thinker. A man you can’t forget once you meet him. In the film, the travels of the director with Alekos Zoukas and his friends to Pirsogianni alternate with Alekos’ confessions about his experience with cancer. A tribute to friendship by a sinful angel…

A documentary focusing on two groups of mental patients. The first is located in the Mental Hospital of Chania and the daily life of patients is presented, their relationships, and their contact with reality. The second group, former patients, travels to Denmark in a rehabilitation journey.

Athanasia, Theodoros, George and Chrysoula live and move around Zefyri, Menidi and the wider region. They no longer live in chattels and camps, but in a modern urban environment, each according to what they can afford. Their children and grandchildren are trying to educate themselves. Through small stories about their lives, each of them slowly unfolds his own special personality. They become people with dreams, hopes and disappointments, but also with an ancestry that has importance.

Starting with doctors and staff of the Metaxa anti-cancer hospital who suffer from cancer themselves, we follow this special group of people as they continue to work in the hospital. From the shock of the first time one hears it, to the experience of "… I learnt to listen to time" cancer transforms from a death-threat to a life teacher for these people, not only adding years to their lives, but also adding Life to their years.

“In 1981 I started working with Nikos on this job. 30 years have passed so fast. I really enjoy socializing here with people, and having fun together. We didn't make money, but it was beautiful”. Nikos and Thodoris have a repair shop for Vespas in Chania, Crete. Just before their retirement, with grease and bearings on their hands, they host us in their daily lives.

Yannis Lionakis, 87 years old, a persecuted and wanted guerrilla, on a farewell trip to the place that defined his life, tells us about an incredible 14-year (1948-1962) effort to survive, which begins with the end of the Civil War in Crete. The core of the film is unpublished material filmed in 2007, as part of the documentary Another Road Never Existed.

Olympia, a 33-year old woman, is already three months pregnant when she finds out that she has lung cancer. After enough thought, she decides to keep the baby. Four months after giving birth to a healthy baby and while her cancer progresses fast, at the initiative of her doctor, Psyllakis and his colleagues will stay near the new mother and her family for four days, recording everything they can.

In "Spaces #1", 8 beloved Greek directors shot, after commissioning by the Festival, a short film at home, making their own timely comment on the new reality that we live in. The project is inspired by the book "Species of Spaces" by the French novelist, filmmaker, documentalist, and essayist, Georges Perec and the days of quarantine. The idea is to create a film at home, using the environment, the people or the animals in that space. The only outdoor areas that may be used are outdoor living spaces, such as the terrace, the garden, the balcony and the stairwell. "My photograph" is Stavros Psyllakis's submission.