Directing Hell

In the mid-1960s, Kostas left his village in Crete dreaming of becoming a star. His rugged physique and humble background afforded him only small “tough-guy” roles, yet in numerous Greek films – from big studio productions and renowned auteur masterpieces to low-budget exploitation films alike. By placing a support actor at centerstage, the film traces five decades of Greek cinema.

Debtocracy seeks the causes of the Greek debt crisis and proposes solutions sidelined by the government and the dominant media. It follows countries like Ecuador that created debt Audit Commissions and tracks this process in Greece.

Unknown short stories from the past, the present and the future of fascism and its relation to the economic interests of each era. We will travel from Mussolini’s Italy to Greece under the Nazi occupation, the civil war and the dictatorship; and from Hitler’s Germany to the modern European and Greek fascism.

Famous Greek artists Yannis Aggelakas and Olia Lazaridou read excerpts from the book A Journal of Two Voyages by Nikos Kazantzakis, while director Aris Chatzistefanou juxtaposes the narration with footage from modern Japan, combined with manga, anime, and video games. An ode to the last journey of the author that shaped his worldview and costed him his life.

Documentary about Anton Chekhov and his descendants in Moscow. Vera Tschechowa, who is the great-grandniece of the poet and writer, meets with family members, writers, and theater professionals. Past and present merge into a poetic journey of discovery into a country that, until then, had been little known in the realm of artistic sensibilities.

Rex Gildo’s songs and musicals made him very popular. His best-known song was “Fiesta Mexicana” from 1972. Rosa von Praunheim tells the story of his life in the context of the gay pride movement, the normative pressures of the Schlager music industry, and the profound changes currently underway.

The film adaptation for the modern era of the ancient tragedy The Bacchae. Pentheus is celebrating his birthday, and surreal scenes unfold before his eyes, arousing doubts in the celebrant as to whether the things he is experiencing are real. Written by Greek Film Archive

Katja's life collapses after the deaths of her husband and son in a bomb attack. After a time of mourning and injustice, Katja seeks revenge.

A couple in crisis comes closer when the woman (who suspecting her husband of adultery) decides to work as a dancer in a nightclub. When he sees her dancing, he desires her again.

fantastical human story

Daphne, a teenage judo athlete from a remote Greek island, is ready to spread her wings and follow Sensei Yuri to the big city and ultimately to the next Olympic Games. Yuri, for unknown reasons, has been absent from the world of Judo for the last few years and he is looking for a new beginning, while Daphne transitions from the carefreeness of adolescence into the hard world of adults.

Thomas Alexopoulos is a businessman drowning in debt, watching the walls close in around him. Cornered by a threatening loan shark and with only a few days left to save his home, he sets a seemingly flawless plan in motion.

Kostis is a 40-year-old doctor that finds himself in the small island of Antiparos, in order to take over the local clinic. His whole life and routine will turn upside down when he meets an international group of young and beautiful tourists and he falls in love with Anna, a 19-year-old goddess.

Love at Twenty unites five directors from five different countries to present their different perspectives on what love really is at the age of 20. The episodes are united with the score of Georges Delerue and still photos of Henri Cartier-Bresson.

A young electrical engineer, engaged to his boss's daughter and on the way to a secure existence, breaks out of his usual life when he meets a childhood friend.

Mobsters conspire to loot another criminal's treasure secured in an enormous booby-trapped vault.

At the start of the 20th century, a man lives in solitude on an island. One day on the mainland, he saves a young woman from some nasty folk and takes her with him to his island. Her former captors soon find the island as well.

Singapore Sling pursues Laura, a romantic memory from his past. One night, he finds himself at a mysterious villa, watching two women bury a body. He falls into their trap and, in an atmosphere of isolation and decadence, the trio act out insane pleasure games and a ritual of blood and murder.

Hamburg student Gabriele constantly dreams of her boyfriend in Australia. The reality is different, because while she sits in lecture halls during the day, she is a dancer in a peep show at night. The place is run by the mysterious Arnold, who not only has his eye on Gabriele, but is also carrying around a secret that he soon lets Gabriele in on: his strip joint is just a pretext for a much more lucrative business, in which a certain Mrs. Lohmann is pulling the strings. Her boss Arnold, with whom she is having an affair, is doing dirty business. He is threatened by a killer because he wants out.

The 24-hour period of a girl moving through the news is the subject of the film. Heroine of a mannequin, who when the "flash" is extinguished, spends a lifetime empty, unconditionally surrendering to loneliness...

Vangelis, a remnant of the rave party generation of the late 90s, sells weed for a living. Wants a steady job, no risks involved. Petros, a smalltime gangster. Wants a family. Demands respect. Katerina unwillingly brings them together under the same roof.

At age 19, Stratos committed a crime of passion. He spent half his life in prison, where underground boss Leonidas took him under his wing. One day during a rival gang attack, Leonidas saved his life. Stratos never forgot this. A free man now, Stratos works the night shift at a bakery workshop, a far cry from the killing contracts he executes by day. He gives away all his money to spring Leonidas out of prison, funding an escape plan managed by Leo’s brother, Yorgos. The fulfillment of his debt is the only thing that matters to Stratos, everything else is indifferent and he lives detached, surrounded by ghosts and fallacies. The day of the escape, the most important day of his life, is near…

The story of the life of a political prisoner in a Russian gulag. Based on the book by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Dr. Fritz Böhler is a prisoner of war doctor in the Soviet POW camp 5110/47 near Stalingrad. Despite the harshest conditions, he tries to help his fellow prisoners with the simplest means. But when his assistant Dr. Schultheiss falls in love with the Russian doctor Alexandra Kasalinskaja, Schultheiss not only endangers his own life - because Alexandra is the lover of First Lieutenant Markow.

The story of a thirties bank employee whose wife becomes a luxury prostitute. The same would happen with the next woman who knows. Xouan a promoter says he belongs to a particular class of people and asks him to work together.

Two brothers are fighting on opposite sides during the Greek Civil War.

Lovers and rivals Elsa and Vera are trapped in a hallucinogenic cycle of love, violence, and obsession with a man, all while seemingly stuck in a purgatory-like mansion.

Five friends (representatives of the Fifties generation) now in their forties, reunite after years of silence: one arrives from jail, where he has been entering and exiting for years; the other comes from a series of 'accidental' murders; another leaves his wife and kids; the fourth is a wonderer; and the last, the sole female, emerges from a lunatic asylum where she's been hiding for years... These outcasts—tortured from barren love affairs, wounded from the deaths of their beloved and betrayed by the politics of their times—hopelessly try to reconstruct the gang of their puberty, but the revolution is lost... Now, each in their own way, will progress into a journey of death, thus opening a new chapter in the history of their generation.

It is a story of a normal, everyday Greek family that each member turns out to be wacko or gets wacko by the other members. The father is the stoic figure that accepts everything. The mother has a middle age crisis and takes advantage of her husbands inability. The older brother is a doctor of psychology and has everything under control (or believe so) and the younger brother does nothing with his life acclaiming that he is a filmmaker.

A lone car thief, meets a mysterious and charming woman who would be the love of his life but will lure him into a dangerous adventure.

A mysterious man, small-time grifter and big time hard-man has an anarchic tendency to riff on the system, society, police, the underworld itself and other things, along with his beloved bird, Bellafonte, meets up with an odd posse consisting of a young songwriter, a prostitute who gathers money in order to open a bookstore, an alcoholic girl haunted by the relationship with her dead mother, and the grudgey bar-woman-ex-girlfriend. The quintet get caught up in a scheme involving the media, the mob, politicians and the police. And they definitely want to get the hell out of the city, probably to some Caribbean paradise.

Olga is a young pharmacist whο lives in the country in Chania, Crete in a confine and claustrophobic environment. Married and the mother of a child she will one day fir herself face to face with her childhood sweetheart, Lefteris who has returned to his place of birth after a long absence, full of ambitions... They both share a tragic sec without, however, confessing, it to each other: they are brother and sister from a different mother. It was the reason they had broken up when they were in love. But now it is not just Olga who goes after Lefteris but Vicky, a young woman who is the complete opposite of his old love. What would love be if it couldn't waste a man!

The last shovelful plunges the shot into darkness. The film seems to be talking about death, yet it's doing the exact opposite.

In the summer of 2021, a research group scouting for viable sites for development arrives at Armenaki Island, where people live with their own laws and their own moral values, having found happiness in a completely different way of life.

the first and only film directed by Takis Antonopoulos