RKS 2024 Film (Short): The 65th Thessaloniki International Film Festival: “Halycon Days”

A farm girl and an auto mechanic from a small Greek village are driving to the mayor’s office for their marriage ceremony but the officiant leaves the building before the ceremony joins the two as man and wife. They must return the following day. The camera work is brilliant in capturing facial expressions of theContinue reading “RKS 2024 Film (Short): The 65th Thessaloniki International Film Festival: “Halycon Days””

RKS 2024 Film: The 65th Thessaloniki International Film Festival: “Maldives”

I read the writer and director’s statement (Daniel Bolda) about his film “Maldives” and had a chuckle as the film is, in my opinion, an open book capable of multiple interpretations. With all due respect and affection, I say Bolda is entitled to his interpretation as you and I are as well! Not that IContinue reading “RKS 2024 Film: The 65th Thessaloniki International Film Festival: “Maldives””

RKS 2024 Film: The 65th Thessaloniki International Film Festival: “Wishbone”

Sorry for jumping ahead here. Do you like “happy endings” and by that I don’t mean that term as used in that “Curb Your Enthusiasm” episode with Larry David and his Korean masseuse I watched on my KLM flight from Thessaloniki to Toronto this week. There is no clear-cut ending here. Director Penny Panayotopoulou hasContinue reading “RKS 2024 Film: The 65th Thessaloniki International Film Festival: “Wishbone””

RKS 2024 Film: The 65th Thessaloniki International Film Festival: “Riviera”

Alkisti (Eva Samioti) lives with her mother Anna (Maria Apostlakea) in a house on the Athenian Riviera letting out rooms to Greek and foreign tourists. Failed writer Petros and an elder couple the Hatzivasiliou’s are guests. Alkisti often expresses herself poetically. Alkisti describes the end of the world in literary terms asking her devil toContinue reading “RKS 2024 Film: The 65th Thessaloniki International Film Festival: “Riviera””

RKS 2024 Film: “The Sweet Hereafter”

One of the most honoured Canadian films of all time, Atom Egoyan’s “The Sweet Hereafter” (1997) was nominated for 16 Genie Awards and won eight, including best picture, director and actor. It also won three major awards at the Cannes Film Festival and received Academy Award nominations for adapted screenplay and director. Widely regarded asContinue reading “RKS 2024 Film: “The Sweet Hereafter””

RKS Travel: Stop That Continual Currency Comparison!

In a country with a different currency than your home country? Are you continually saying in “my currency” what would that amount to? Well, you aren’t in your country are you? Perhaps a better perspective would be, in most cases, to stop that comparison. Why not think local and act local as isn’t that theContinue reading “RKS Travel: Stop That Continual Currency Comparison!”

RKS 2024 Film: “All You Need is Blood”: A Bloody Interesting Targeted Audience Comedy

I returned two days ago from 10 days at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival where I watched and reviewed 20 movies. Three were Greek films about making a movie about a movie. They weren’t comedies as “All You Need is Blood” which is a movie about making a movie about making a movie. Bucky (LoganContinue reading “RKS 2024 Film: “All You Need is Blood”: A Bloody Interesting Targeted Audience Comedy”

RKS 2024 Film: Nasty Bad Ass Danes Terrorize Poor Swedes in “Stockholm Bloodbath”

Rest assured “Stockholm Bloodbath” offers the viewer exactly what the title suggests.  Hangings, beheadings, burning at the stake, deadly cannonballs, torn limbs and arrows wreaking havoc on the human body and all manner of ghastly terminations of lives. In 1532 Danish King Kristian II (Claes Bang) launches yet another campaign against the head of stateContinue reading “RKS 2024 Film: Nasty Bad Ass Danes Terrorize Poor Swedes in “Stockholm Bloodbath””

RKS 2024 Film: The 65th Thessaloniki International Film Festival: “Fauna”: Corruption Lost in Itself

In a 2024 Greek film director Stratoula Theodoratou delves into moral and political corruption in Greek society. Corruption respects no boundaries, and it may be those attempting to expose corruption are equally corrupt as those they strive to expose. Anna, an Athenian photojournalist, when escaping from a violent demonstration, encounters severely demented Lambros eating aContinue reading “RKS 2024 Film: The 65th Thessaloniki International Film Festival: “Fauna”: Corruption Lost in Itself”

RKS 2024 Film: The 65th Thessaloniki International Film Festival: “Natatorium”: Supressed Evil Takes a Lunge

Eighteen-year-old Lilja visits grandmother Áóra and grandfather Grimur to be proximate to an audition for an international performance group unable to contact her father Magnus about her stay. How sweet, a stay with granny and grandpa! Kalli, the son of Granny and Grandpa, is bedridden in their home seriously ill. Their daughter Val owner ofContinue reading “RKS 2024 Film: The 65th Thessaloniki International Film Festival: “Natatorium”: Supressed Evil Takes a Lunge”