Akadimia Platonos
Stavros is a tobacconist in the Plato’s Academy District in Athens. A middle-aged man with a dead-end life, he spends his days sitting outside his store with some other shop keepers, chewing the cud, grumbling about the influx of Albanians and Chinese in Athens. His wife has long since left him and his evenings are devoted to his elderly mother. His refuge is his nationalism. He is Greek and proud of it. In his his darker moments, he can always console himself with the thought that at least he is not an Albanian…or, at least, that is what he thinks. (Festival information)
Through its well-considered mise-en-scène and deliberate camera work, this film is a detailed observation of simple people in their everyday life in a neighbourhood in Athens. With a sometimes bitter-sweet, sometimes ironical tone, the film criticises naive patriotism and xenophobia, pleading instead for the dismissal of prejudices, a good understanding between cultures and the acceptance of others even if they are different.