New York Greek Film Expo Offers Movie Fans Chance To See Seven Recent Films Making Their American Premieres

The metaphor that can be gleaned from the title of Dimitris Nakos’s debut feature, “Meat,” is blatant, maybe too blatant. A primary component of the story is an unregistered slaughterhouse in the far reaches of a mountain village in Greece, a locale in which civic bonds and personal grudges are held tightly. A murder occurs, and though its repercussions prove difficult to bear for those within its orbit, that’s not to say that some lives aren’t considered more expendable than others. The moral quandaries at the core of Mr. Nakos’s picture are dense and difficult. Its abiding dilemmas can be likened to those found in the novels of Feodor Dostoevsky, Albert Camus, and Patricia Highsmith. Given the context in which I saw “Meat,” the New York Greek Film Expo, audience members couldn’t help but peg it as a Greek tragedy. Mr. Nakos, who was at the screening and fielded questions afterward, confirmed the analogy, pointing out that the power of the genre lies in its inevitability. We know a tragedy won’t end well.“Meat” is one of seven recent films that will be making their American premieres at the New York Greek Film Expo, an annual event that is being held at three venues: Manhattan’s Village East Cinema, the Barrymore Film Center at Fort Lee, New Jersey, and the Museum of the Moving Image at Astoria, Queens. The latter has long been host to a recurring film series presented by the Hellenic Film Society, “Always on Sunday,” and has seen fit to mount a concurrent retrospective of a veteran Greek director, Pantelis Voulgaris.Movie-goers curious about world cinema and who enjoy the experience of going to a theater are advised to mark their calendars: How likely it is that these films will get a broader release on these shores is an open question. The breakout picture from last year’s expo, Sofia Exarchou’s “Animal” (2023), is available to stream but has yet to have a proper American run. Why our art houses and revival theaters haven’t yet hosted the film is a mystery. “Animal” deserves to be seen.Angeliki Papoulia in ‘Arcadia.’ Via Foss ProductionsThis year’s expo opened with Angelos Frantzis’s “Murphy’s Law,” an alternate reality film about middle-age career disappointment, and questions that should not be mooted lightly. Mr. Frantzis is clearly conversant with cinematic staples like “Here Comes Mr. Jordan” (1941) and “Groundhog Day” (1993), and the picture’s uptempo rhythms recall the screwball comedies of Howard Hawks and Preston Sturges. Katia Goulioni, who has racked up plaudits and awards for her performance as an actress at the end of her rope, proves amenable to working with children and dogs.Yorgos Zois’s “Arcadia” made a sweep of the Hellenic Film Academy Awards — it won Best Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Picture — and has been submitted to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as Greece’s nominee for Best International Feature Film. The scuttlebutt surrounding “Arcadia” posits it as heir to the so-called Weird Wave of Greek cinema, a genre known for its off-kilter, eccentric, and often unpleasant tendencies. A review in Variety notes that Mr. Zois’s picture “will hold limited appeal for those who generally look to find comfort at the movies.”A similar caution could be applied to “Meat,” but Mr. Zois’s film is marked by an abiding sense of rectitude whose resonance is deeper than mere outrage. The story is as simple as death: A father strikes a deal with a valued associate to save the life of an errant son. The reverberations set into motion by the disappearance of a local man and the subsequent compromising of cultural loyalties are mirrored in Giorgos Valsamis’s jittery handheld camerawork, and amplified by a keening, atonal soundtrack by Konstantis Pistiolis. All the while, Mr. Zois plumbs the inner workings of the human psyche with an acuity that will, fingers crossed, garner the audience it deserves.

New York Greek Film Expo Offers Movie Fans Chance To See Seven Recent Films Making Their American Premieres

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