Ulysses’ Gaze

Greek American filmmaker A. returns to Greece after many years, in search of three undeveloped film reels by the Manaki brothers, pioneers of Balkan cinema. His desperate quest for the film that captured the first gaze in the Balkans becomes, at the same time, his own search for a new way to see the world. His journey is an odyssey, but not in the Homeric sense – Homeric analogies appear only as scattered motifs in the long journey of his quest.

This is the second part of the "Border Trilogy". Gian Maria Volonté began filming as the curator of the Sarajevo film library, but he passed away suddenly and was replaced by Erland Josephson. The film begins with a dedication to the memory of the great Italian actor. The scene in Florina with the religious counter-protest is a direct reference to what happened with the local church in relation to To Meteoro Vima tou Pelargou (The Suspended Step of the Stork, 1991). The statue of Lenin stands 35 meters tall. Filming took place in Greece (Thessaloniki, Florina, Lavrio), Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Albania, and Romania. Among those who participated in the parts dubbed into our language were Pemy Zouni, Evgenios Spatharis, Alexandros Mylonas, and Kyriakos Argyropoulos. It marked a glorious closing for the cinematic careers of Dora Volanaki, Stratos Pachis, and Miranda Kounelaki. Theodoros Angelopoulos left the audience at the Cannes awards ceremony speechless when he went up to accept the festival's second most important prize. All he stated was: "If this is what you have to give me, then I have nothing to say". His insistence that he should have already received the Palme d'Or was ultimately to be satisfied with his next work, Mia Aioniotita kai mia Mera (Eternity and a Day, 1998). With 190,000 tickets sold, it came in first place among 15 Greek films of the season.