At the top Berlin European Film Festival (February 10-20, 2022), the Official Encounters Competition will make its world premiere of “The City and the City”, a unique film that spans seven decades of the history of Thessaloniki and the bitter experience of its Jewish community.
Christos Passalis (blitz group, Luzerner theater, etc.) and Syllas Tzoumerkas (Country of Origin, The Explosion, The Miracle of the Sargasso Sea) return creatively to their hometown and co-direct a film structured in six chapters, a preface and a preface. Filmed in just 14 days, with an excellent group of artists, both beloved and debutant actors, “The City and the City” blurs the boundaries between fiction, documentary and essay film.
The co-production of the National Opera and Homemade Films in collaboration with the Thessaloniki Film Festival, is signed by Maria Drandaki, and curated by Orestis Andreadakis. The film was supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (ISN) as part of its donation for the creation of the anniversary program of the National Opera for the 200 years since the Greek Revolution of 1821, the Claims Conference – the Conference of Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, the Hellenic-German Fund for the Future, the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung – Office in Greece, EKOME, the Cultural Center of the Region of Central Macedonia, MOMus, the Hellenic Cinema Center and the Israeli Community of Thessaloniki.
Christos Passalis and Syllas Tzoumerkas note about the film: “Two cities coexist in the same frame: the city of Thessaloniki of the last century and the city as it is today. Space and time are intertwined in an enigmatic way: the lost city, the struggling, humiliated, forever lost inhabitants coexist next to the modern inhabitants. Two currents are formed: the first is the modern, that of everyday life. The other is based on the true experience and hard events of a well-buried age – an age that left open wounds, but also the traces of a lost Eden. The two currents, the modern and the other, meet and converse in the cracks – as in a dream “.
The artistic director of the National Opera, George Koumentakis, says: “We are happy for the participation of the film” The City and the City “in the competition section” Encounters “of the Berlin festival. I would like to congratulate its creators, Christos Passalis and Sylla Tzoumerka for the first very important step in the international course of the film, the participation in this year’s Berlinale. “The City and the City” is one of our most important assignments for the anniversary program of the National Opera for 1821 and was realized thanks to the donation of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, in the framework of our collaboration with the Thessaloniki Film Festival and in co-production with Homemade Films. We wish the film to have the international course and the recognition it deserves “.
The multi-faceted ensemble cast of the film consists of Vassilis Kanakis, Alexandros Vardaxoglou, Angeliki Papoulia, Argyris Xafis, Niki Papandreou, Vassilis Karaboulas, Themis Bazaka, Maria Filini, Laertis Malkotsis, Marilin Lefarka, Marissa F Armaganidis, Zoi Sigalou, Marina Siotou, Danae Primali, Michalis Kimonas, Leonardos Batis, Vasia Bakakou, and many more professional actors and amateurs.
The cinematography of the film is signed by Simos Sarketzis (Little England, Winona, My Beloved Smyrna), the editing by George Zafeiris (Apples), the sets by Christos Passalis, the costumes by Marley Aliferi (Suntan, The Miracle of Thassa) and Vassilia Rozana (Attenberg, Digger), the sound by Costas Varybombiotis, Nikos Exarchos, Dimitris Kanellopoulos and Persephone Miliou, while the make-up and hairdressing design by Evi Zafeiropoulou and Ioulia Sigmi.
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