CANNES 2006 Critics Week / Greece, Cyprus
Soul Kicking, words like stones
"A modern adaptation of Georg Büchner’s Woyzeck", is how Pierre Murat, one of the Critics’ Week programmers, defined it before its screening. And, in effect, Soul Kicking (I Psihi Sto Stoma) by Yannis Economidis has all of the verbal cruelty of Woyzeck sculpted in stone.
The only Greek film at the Cannes Film Festival , the second feature (after Matchbox) by the 40 year-old director from Cyprus is a celebration of hatred, expressed with the violence of words rather than gestures, an endless exchange of insults among the characters, whose disdain for life has reached the high water mark.
The film’s main character is 50 year-old Takis (an unflappable Errikos Litsis), who works in a small manufacturing lab in Athens and fights against his daily existential burdens with stubborn silence.
Soul Kicking was produced by Panos Papahadzis for Agronauts Productions (see interview), the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation - ERT , the Film Advisory Board of Cyprus, the Greek Film Centre, Yannis Economidis Films, Strada Productions, Cassandra Productions, Lambros Triphyllis and Nikos Tsangaris.
(Translated from Italian)
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