The World Again

Colour, 35 mm
Greece, 2002, 110 min
Section: Official selection

Synopsis

Two friends from a children’s home, Yannis and Giorgos, earn a living delivering pizzas; they are both in love with Maria, who grew up with them in the same institution. Maria’s flatmate Eleni has made up her mind to search for the grave of her mother. All four make the acquaintance of Anna, a girl their age, and, enchanted by the magical atmosphere of an evening spent together, they decide to go with Eleni. They take off with her on four mopeds to search for the cemetery where her mother might be buried. These young outlaws are discovering the world, but they face a series of strange encounters and unusual situations which force them to rethink their attitudes toward life and death. But not everything is as real as it looks… This third feature film by Greek film and stage director Nicos Cornilios effectively combines realistic images with symbolic motifs and bizarre hyperbole which only gradually filters to the surface.

About the director

Nicos Cornilios (b. 1954, Athens) studied architecture, music and theatre. He lived in Paris in 1972-1987, where he worked as a composer. He was also a director for the Chaillot National Theatre and worked for the festivals in Avignon and Strasbourg. He returned to Greece in 1988. Apart from his teaching and directing at the National Theatre, he also started making movies. Filmography: the experimental medium-length film Three Movements (1982); the story of five people reviving an old drama at an archaeological excavation site Equinox (Isimeria, 1991); a drama set in a city suffering a water shortage, Desert Sky (To athoo soma, 1997); and The World Again (O cosmos xana, 2002), a road movie about five adolescents.