Anna's Engagement by Pantelis Voulgaris (1972)
Available on Onassis Channel on YouTube from 4 to 6 March 2022 | Duration: 85'
The film tribute "Zeta, Floretta, Niki" now continues on the Onassis Channel on YouTube with four iconic films that connect what once was with what now is, sparking discussion about vital and pressing issues of our times.
Anna, a poor girl from the countryside, has been working as a domestic servant in a middle-class Athenian family for ten years. When her bosses realise that Anna has reached a marriageable age, they choose a young man on her behalf and invite him over on a Sunday. That same evening, they let Anna go out alone with the prospective groom. On this short outing, Anna will experience, for the first time in her life, feelings that she had deeply suppressed - but her bosses’ moral hypocrisy will not let her enjoy them. When she gets back home, they have already changed their mind, sweeping the ground beneath her feet, with the same ease they decided to build a life for her.
In his feature film debut, Pantelis Voulgaris introduces himself as a filmmaker eager to comment on the bourgeois reality of the early ‘70s in a subtly biting way, making one of the most influential films in the birth of New Greek Cinema. Voulgaris examines class dynamics, relations of economic dependence and the position of women at a time when the city of Athens was beginning to be the only way out, where the new Greek dream was born and died, where fates were determined by a nod and a whim of the ruling class. Staying true to his original personal vision and refusing to make any changes that would make the film more commercial, Voulgaris ultimately completes a stark, honest ethnography of a savage era.
Best Artistic Film, Best Newcomer Director, Best Leading Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Supporting Actor (Thessaloniki Film Festival 1972), FIPRESCI Prize, Otto-Dibelius Award, OCIC Award (Berlin Film Festival 1972), Outstanding Film of the Year (London Film Festival 1974)
Producer: Dinos Katsouridis
Script: Pantelis Voulgaris, Menis Koumantareas
Cinematography: Nikos Kavoukidis
Editing: Dinos Katsouridis
Sets & Costumes: Kyriakos Katzourakis
Sound: Petros Patelis
Cast: Anna Vagena, Smaro Veaki, Kostas Rigopoulos, Stavros Kalaroglou, Aliki Zografou, Irini Emirza, Alekos Oudinotis, Maria Martika, Mika Flora, Nikos Garofalou, Loula Christidou, Giorgos Morton
Film stills
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