The Spring Gathering by Dimos Avdeliodis | 1999

Chios island, 1960. Following the unexplained death of a village’s rural guard, the local council asks the police chief to appoint a replacement. No-one wants to take the job, however, thanks to the village’s poor reputation and the unexpected death of their colleague whilst on duty. The village council decides to offer a higher salary to whoever will replace him. When the police chief announces this to his twelve rural guards, four offer to take the job. He picks one of them to go. The guard is posted at the beginning of summer and, after four months of service, is fired by the police chief for breach of duty. A similar fate awaits his three successors, each one removed at the end each season for similar breaches that arise each time from their natures.

Voted onto the 2006 and 2016 Greek Film Critics Association lists for the ten best Greek films of all time

FIPRESCI Award (International Federation of Film Critics)

Four awards at the 2001 Berlin International Film Festival Forum*

Best Director, Thessaloniki International Film Festival

Audience Award, Thessaloniki International Film Festival

*DISTINCTIONS at the Berlin Festival Forum

Arthouse Cinema Association (CICAE) Award, “for its artistic integrity, its authenticity, its creative freedom”.

“Don Quixote” Award from the International Federation of Film Societies (FICC). (FICC is an international network of arthouse cinemas that seeks to promote films of artistic excellence.)

2000 Caligari Film Prize; the award announcement drew attention to “the multifaceted parable the film presents, with its incredible characters, use of political allegory, authenticity, and humor”.

Highly commended by the German “Bild” newspaper’s film critics pool. The film was distributed in Germany by the German “Pandora-Pegasus” company.

Festival appearances and other international screenings

Thessaloniki

Berlin, Munich, Genoa, Zurich, Lisbon

Tokyo, San Francisco, Chicago

Avdeliodis’ film is an audiovisual symphony, a thrilling fable for young and old, a narrative that lies on the border between logic and the absurd, between realism and poetry, where reality – under pressure from the sun and wind, cold and heat, colors and sounds – is raised to the heights and brought face to face with a dream-state and lost innocence.

Yiannis Soldatos, from his “History of Greek Cinema”

Its humor, poetry, and an inventiveness won over festival audiences who love simple yet original filmmaking. What’s clear is that this film bears no relation to the 1960s, nor to later decades and forms. Its intense musicality means it more rightly belongs to the silent era, and perhaps also to the beautiful shores of 19th-century literature.

Fotos Lambrinos, KATHIMERINI, December 25, 1999

Like a painting that expands to fill the film’s three-hour runtime and all four seasons of the dramatic year it depicts, Avdeliodis’ feature takes shape through brushstrokes marked freely across its canvas, without any sense that the director’s freedom of expression is ever being limited, and without ever losing the restraint required to harmoniously transform fantasy into reality.

Agis Marangoudakis, RIZOSPASTIS, November 18, 1999

With “The Four Seasons of the Law”, Dimos Avdeliodis makes poetry. It feels like he’s directing the score of Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons”, referencing nature’s transitions through the stories of four rural guards on the island of Chios in 1960. It results in an epic film reminiscent of poetry, and rooted in the history and traditions of Parajanov’s filmmaking.

Maria Katsounaki, KATHIMERINI, November 18, 1999

Genuine lyricism and an air of cinematic naivety mark this three-hour-long epic that won the Audience Award at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, as well as the Best Director Prize at the Greek State Awards.

Bambis Aktsoglou, ATHINORAMA

“The Four Seasons of the Law”

In an era when most features are too long, and some directors seem incapable of telling the most ordinary stories at less than 2 1/2 hours, it’s a delight to find a movie that actually benefits from its length. Clocking in at a tick under three hours, Dimos Avdeliodis’ third feature, “The Four Seasons of the Law,” is a wry comedy of rural life that does double duty as an examination of the Greek character and its sly transgression of authority.

By Derek Elley “Variety” (January 2, 2000)

Produced by: Dimos Avdeliodis, Greek Film Center (EKK), Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT)
Directed by: Dimos Avdeliodis
Written by: Dimos Avdeliodis
Cinematography by: Odysseas Pavlopoulos, Sotiris Perreas, Alekos Yiannaros, Linos Meitanis
Film Editing by: Kostas Iordanidis
Production Design by: Nikos Hadzis
Music: Antonio Vivaldi, “The Four Seasons”
Starring: Angeliki Malanti, Takis Agoris, Yannis Tsoubariotis, Stelios Makrias, Angelos Pantelaras, Ilias Petropouleas, Panagiotis Louros, Marinos Mouzakis, Giorgos Pavlidakis, Dimitris Avgoustidis