29/08/2005

The 29th Montreal World Film Festival (26 August – 5 September) will screen on Thursday in the world competition for first films, the first feature length work of fiction by Greek Kyriakos Katzourakis, Douce Mémoire (Sweet Memory), the story of a young woman born in Moscow who returns to Greece, land of her father, to rediscover her half-brother, the country’s origins and its history.
From a fine art and painting background - he has participated in many exhibitions and has worked for fifteen odd years in the theatre in set and costume design -, Kyriakos Katzourakis, went behind the camera in 2003 to direct a documentary The Way to the West, screened at numerous international festivals and winner of the Fipresci prize at the Thessalonica Documentary Festival that year. Docu-fiction, this first work mixing the fictional story of a Russian immigrant (played by Katia Gerou whom we also find in the latest film), the words of immigrants and the director’s paintings.

Worth noting, too, the screening in the "Focus on World Cinema" of the co-production between Turkey and Greece, directed by the Turk Ugur Yücel, Yazi Tura, a first feature length fiction by the actor and TV director, which is the story of two men who survived the war in West Anatolia.

(Translated from French)