ULYSSES' GAZE | ||||
ULYSSES' GAZE (Greece/France/Italy/Germany. 1995. 176 minutes. Colour) Directed by : Theo Angelopoulos Screenplay by : Theo Angelopoulos with the participation of Tonino Guerra, Petros Markaris, Giorgio Silvagni Cinematography by : Giorgos Arvanitis Music by : Eleni Karaindrou Violin solo by : Kim Kashkashian Music production : Manfred Eicher Edited by : Yannis Tsitsopoulos Sound engineers : Thanassis Arvanitis, Marton Jankov-Tomica, Yannis Haralambidis Sound Mixing : Bernard Leroux Costumes designed by : Giorgos Ziakas Production designed by : Giorgos Patsas and Miodrac Mile Nicolic Executive producer : Phoebe Economopoulos Executive producer (Paris) : Marc Soustras Producers : Giorgio Silvagni, Eric Heumann, Dragan Ivanovic-Hevi, Ivan Milovanovic Production : Theo Angelopoulos Productions, Greek Film Centre, MEGA Channel, Paradis Film, La Generale d'Images, La Sept Cinema, with the participation of Canal +, Basic Cinematografica, Instituto Luce, RAI, Tele-Muenchen, Concorde Films, Herbert Kloider and in association with Channel 4 With : Harvey Keitel (A), Maia Morgenstern (woman in Florina/Penelope, Kali/Calypso, widow/Circe, Naomi Levi/Nausica), Erland Josephson (Ivo Levy), Thanassis Vengos (taxi driver), Giorgos Michalakopoulos (Nikos), Dora Volanaki (old lady in Albania), Mania Papadimitriou (the mother in A's memory). SYNOPSIS A Greek-American filmmaker, known simply as «A», returns to his hometown in northern Greece for a screening of his latest controversial film. His real reason for coming back, however, is to track down three long-missing reels of film by Greece's pioneering Manakia brothers who in the early years of cinema traveled through the Balkans, ignoring national and ethnic strife and recording ordinary people, especially craftsmen, on film. Their images, he believes, hold the key to lost innocence and essential truth, to an understanding of Balkan history Thus he embarks on a search that takes him across the war-torn Balkans, a landscape of spectral figures and broken dreams, right to the heart of darkness: a damaged film archive in Sarajevo where his quest ends. Like a latter-day Ulysses he finds his «Ithaca», the missing, undeveloped film and is at last united with the work of the Manakia brothers... his gaze communes with theirs and another journey begins. ULYSSES' GAZE (1995)
Awards: --1995. Grand Jury Prize and International Critics' Prize, Cannes Film Festival. Felix of the Critics (Film of the Year 1995). |