From the Edge of the City

Apo tin akri tis polis

Greece

1998

94 Min

Color

1.85:1

Greek, Russian

Currently 3.2/5 Stars.
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EXEC Maria Powell, Ioanna Spiliopoulou

PROD Dionyssis Samiotis, Anastasios Vasiliou

CAST Stathis Papadopoulos, Costas Kotsianidis, Panayiotis Hartomatzidis, Dimitris Papoulidis, Theodora Tzimou, Anestis Polychronidis, Nikos Kamontos, Stelios Tsemboglidis, Giorgos Mavridis

MUSIC Akis Daoutis

Toronto (Contemporary World Cinema), Berlinale (Panorama), Chicago, Stockholm (Competition)

Synopsis

17-year-old Sasha and his family have emigrated from the Pontian area of the former Soviet Union to seek their fortune in Greece, only to find themselves despised as “Albanian.” With few prospects, he and his fellow immigrant buddies resort to a lifestyle of petty crime, tomfoolery and prostitution. Sasha soon becomes the smoldering center of this gang of Pontian Greek kids who live on the margins of Athens. Sickened of the rent-boy existence, Sasha accepts an older pimp’s offer to chaperone a beautiful Russian hooker, but when he inevitably falls in love with her, he must face the potentially dangerous consequences. –Inbaseline

Director

Constantine Giannaris

Constantine Giannaris (b. 1959, Athens) emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1976. He graduated from the University of Keele, and then continued studies at university in Birmingham before moving to London. He started his film career making short movies, including Trojans (1990; Best Short Film at the festivals in Cork and Turin), North of Vortex (1991; Best Short Film at Chicago) and Caught Looking (1991; Teddy Award in the Panorama section at the Berlinale). His first feature film, 3 Steps to Heaven (1995), was screened in the Directors’ Fortnight at the 1995 Cannes IFF. From the Edge of the City (Apo tin akri tis polis, 1998) followed and was awarded Best Director, Best Greek Drama and the Greek Film Critics’ Prize at the Thessaloniki IFF; it was also screened at numerous other festivals including Berlin. One Day in August (Dekapentavgoustos, 2001) was screened in competition at the festivals in Berlin, Chicago, Melbourne, Troy (where it took Best Screenplay) and Thessaloniki (honoured… read more

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Dimitris Psachos

16Apr10

Why the low ratings for this one? It's actually quite true to the many "immigrant" events around Athens, then and now and Giannaris never exaggerates in the homosexual indications.