Eastern European tourists enjoying the summer and singing the hits of their youth in a shabby seaside resort somewhere along the Greek shores, with the help of a professional but jaded official entertainment team, the “animators”. We get a peek into the monotonous rhythm of their world hidden behind the music and dance shows presented to the hotel guests in Sofia Exarchou's second feature film. All the tension, their intimate and desperate co-existence, their tired smiles that light up momentarily, are captured by Monika Lenczewska's realistically shaky handheld camera. At the centre is Kalia (Dimitra Vlagopoulou), a dancer with an angular, still muscular body, now in her tenth year on the same job, offering organised pleasure and illusion to hotel guests who can just about pay for a few days' holiday at the beach. All-inclusive from behind the blinds, stripped down and masterfully presented to the viewer, with one of the most captivating acting performances of the year at its centre.
International Competition
Sofia Exarchou
Sofia Exarchou was born in Athens in 1979. She studied film in Athens and Toulouse and studied acting at the Stella Adler acting studio in New York. Her realistic, socially sensitive films deeply touch and involve the viewer in their subtly portrayed, unique world. Her first film, Park, premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 2016. Set in the empty, deserted Olympic Village after the 2004 Athens Olympics, the film follows a group of straggling youths who escape their bleak daily lives lurking among the wealthy guests of a luxury resort. In Animal, Exarchou wanted to show "modern working systems in capitalistic societies up close. Living in Greece, I knew that the touristic industry would be the working system of my film”, and with the focus on the animators, she placed also “the notion of entertainment in the centre of the movie." In an interview, referencing Bresson, Exarchou explained that for her, cinema is to create “images, stories, ideas that we have never imagined, seen or thought before. For the filmmakers, it also condenses, in my opinion, the biggest drive to create films. To make these images visible and put them out there for everybody to see.”
in Greek
with English and Hungarian subtitles
Lux Audience Award 2025 - Final | European Parliament and European Film Academy
Locarno Film Festival 2023 - Best Actress Award (Dimitra Vlagopoulou)
Thessaloniki Film Festival 2023 (International Competition) - Best Film, Best Actress (Dimitra Vlagopoulou)
Sarajevo Film Festival 2023 (International Competition)
Les Arcs European Film Festival 2023 (International Competition) - Best Actor Prize
Director: Sofia Exarchou
Cast: Dimitra Vlagopoulou, Flomaria Papadaki, Ahilleas Hariskos
Cinematography: Monika Lenczewska
Screenwriter: Sofia Exarchou
Producer: Maria Drandaki
Editor: Dragos Apetri
Music: Wolfgang Frisch
Hungarian Distributor: -
Colour: colour
Run time: 116 mins
The screening is made possible thanks to the support of the Lux Audience Award organized by the European Parliament.
