Eternity and a Day

Mia aioniotita kai mia mera

MS12

Genre

Drama

Director

Theo Agelopoulos

Run time

2h 17min

Cast

Bruno Ganz, Isabelle Renauld, Alexandra Ladikou, Fabrizio Bentivoglio, Achileas Skevis

Alexander (Bruno Ganz), an old writer, is ill and prepared to die. He says his goodbyes and recalls his life with his beautiful wife (Isabelle Renauld), long ago.

While driving his car he saves a street kid, an illegal immigrant from Albania, from being arrested. Later in the day, by chance, he sees the same boy being abducted, and follows in his car.

Although he is preoccupied with his own regrets, he puts death on hold to find a way to help the boy. During his final day, he becomes involved through magic realism with moments from memory, realising that he has never known how to love, always escaping into a creative forest where artists stumble like blind horses.

„No matter where I am, Greece wounds me. It’s due to our past, all that poetry learned at school. Until I studied in Paris I hated all that, but then I re-read Homer’s „Odyssey”. And it filled me with nostalgia for my country and my culture. The poem still haunts me, and is central to my work. So for me, Greece isn’t a geographical space, but a civilization: a text by Plato or some other writer. That’s what’s universal. So when I’m faced with the realties of today’s Greece, it hurts.”

Theo Angelopoulos

Genre

Drama

Director

Theo Agelopoulos

Run time

2h 17min

Cast

Bruno Ganz, Isabelle Renauld, Alexandra Ladikou, Fabrizio Bentivoglio, Achileas Skevis

Alexander (Bruno Ganz), an old writer, is ill and prepared to die. He says his goodbyes and recalls his life with his beautiful wife (Isabelle Renauld), long ago.

While driving his car he saves a street kid, an illegal immigrant from Albania, from being arrested. Later in the day, by chance, he sees the same boy being abducted, and follows in his car.

Although he is preoccupied with his own regrets, he puts death on hold to find a way to help the boy. During his final day, he becomes involved through magic realism with moments from memory, realising that he has never known how to love, always escaping into a creative forest where artists stumble like blind horses.

„No matter where I am, Greece wounds me. It’s due to our past, all that poetry learned at school. Until I studied in Paris I hated all that, but then I re-read Homer’s „Odyssey”. And it filled me with nostalgia for my country and my culture. The poem still haunts me, and is central to my work. So for me, Greece isn’t a geographical space, but a civilization: a text by Plato or some other writer. That’s what’s universal. So when I’m faced with the realties of today’s Greece, it hurts.”

Theo Angelopoulos

Info

Rating

Under 12 Not Recommended

Production year

2012

Global distributor

Pimedate Ööde Filmifestival MTÜ

Local distributor

Pimedate Ööde Filmifestival MTÜ

In cinema

11/21/2012