Variety Critics’ Choice 2015 / A Blast / Greece, Germany, Netherlands 2014
This harrowing story of a young mother’s manic nervous breakdown in the face of financial ruin is coupled with a bristling socioeconomic critique that takes in the disillusionment of today’s thirtysomething generation and their resulting radicalization. Marie declares war on her family, society, and herself as she tries to find a way out of the cycle of dependence.
Almost nobody is having a blast in, well, A Blast, and that statement can probably be extended to viewers of Syllas Tzoumerkas’ aggressive, agitated second feature. Still, this story of a young mother’s manic nervous breakdown in the face of financial ruin displays more than enough rough-and-tumble directorial nerve, coupled with a bristling socioeconomic critique, to magnetize those accustomed to the headier demands of Greek New Wave cinema. The national seething over Greece’s ongoing financial crisis has powered much of the country’s recent cinematic output, though filmmakers have tended to address the subject through opaque allegory. Not so in A Blast, where scarcely any issue (or insult) goes unspoken, and where the narrative pivots drastically on a family’s ruinous business debts, its thrashing energy anchored by a fierce star turn from Dogtooth (Kynodontas, 2009) lead Angeliki Papoulia.
Guy Lodge
83 min / Color, DCP
Director Syllas Tzoumerkas
/ Screenplay Syllas Tzoumerkas, Youla Boudali
/ Dir. of Photography Pantelis Mantzanas
/ Music drog_A_tek
/ Editor Kathrin Dietzel
/ Art Director Elli Papageorgakopoulou
/ Producer Maria Drandaki, Titus Kreyenberg, Ellen Havenith, Jeroen Beker
/ Production Homemade Films
/ Coproduction Unafilm, PRPL, Bastide Films
/ Cast Angeliki Papoulia, Vassilis Doganis, Maria Filini, Themis Bazaka, Giorgos Biniaris
/ Sales EZ Films
Syllas Tzoumerkas (b. 1978, Thessaloniki) studied theater, acting, and film direction in Athens, Utrecht, and New York. He first gained attention with The Devouring Eyes (2000), a Dogma-influenced short that was presented at the Cannes festival. After making another two acted shorts and collaborating with various TV documentary shows on episodes related to contemporary politics and 20th century history and literature, he debuted in features with Homeland (Hora proelefsis, 2010), a bitter saga spanning the past 60 years of a family and country in crisis. The picture was presented at numerous top world festivals, including Karlovy Vary (2011), and won five awards from the Hellenic Film Academy. His latest work premiered at the Locarno IFF and participated in the festivals in Rotterdam, Sarajevo, London, and São Paulo. Tzoumerkas also acts in the films of his peers.
EZ Films
14, rue mandar, 75002, Paris
France
Phone: +33 671 792 026
E-mail: [email protected]
Syllas Tzoumerkas
Titus Kreyenberg
Producer
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