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Danish-Palestinian director Mahdi Fleifel’s assured fiction debut opens in a typical town square in contemporary Athens. The square is leafy and shaded, with plentiful orange trees, but it’s not prettified or bourgeois. The people hanging out there are a mixture of tourists, locals and those of indeterminate status, including Chatila (Mahmood Bakri) and Reda (Aram Sabbah), a couple of young men seemingly watching the world go by on a nice day in the city. They observe a small boy jumping to snatch an orange from a tree, before setting their sights on an older woman relaxing on a bench. Chatila confirms her as their target and the pair set in motion a modest and well-rehearsed bag-snatching scam.

It’s the first of many attempts the pair will make to raise money. Chatila and Reda are Palestinians, stuck in Athens, hoping to reach Germany. The duo are cousins, and...

Sales agency Cercamon has debuted the trailer for time-shift drama “Embryo Larva Butterfly,” which has its world premiere in the Proxima Competition section of Karlovy Vary Film Festival.

The film, directed and written by Cypriot Kyros Papavassiliou, is described by the festival as “an imaginative film about the paradoxes of time and of romantic and other relationships.”

It centers on Penelope and Isidoros, who live in a world where today they are lovers but the following day they scarcely know one another. It is a place where time doesn’t flow, where the days appear randomly in the past, present and future.

“Their relationship is constantly changing,” according to Karlovy Vary. “It is one continuous uncertainty marked by shared searching and reassuring. Somewhere next to their world is another where time is linear. It is possible to travel from arbitrary time to linear time, but the conditions for such a...

Emma Stone has proven to be director Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Favourite” star.

The Oscar winner teams up again with “The Favourite” auteur Lanthimos for the black-and-white short film “Bleat.” The film is the second work to be commissioned as part of the Greek National Opera and nonprofit Neon program “The Artist on the Composer.” French actor Damien Bonnard also stars.

“Bleat” will have its world premiere May 6, accompanied by live music ensembles May 6–8 in Stavros Niarchos Hall at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center in Kallithea, Greece. Thodoros Mihopoulos serves as cinematographer of the eerie short; its plot is currently under wraps.

“Bleat” was filmed on the Greek island of Tinos in February 2020 featuring instrumental pieces by J.S. Bach / Knut Nystedt and Toshio Hosokawa, which will be performed live at the premiere events by soloists Angelina Tkatcheva (cimbalom) and Wu Wei (sheng), the “Maria Callas” quartet, and the Chorus of the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation.

Before the year ends, we’ll likely be getting a new feature from Yorgos Lanthimos, his Frankenstein reimagining Poor Things with Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, and Margaret Qualley. However, it’s not the only new project that finds the Greek director reteaming with his star of The Favourite.

They’ve reunited for Bleat, a new black-and-white short and the second work to be commissioned as part of the Greek National Opera (Gno) and Neon program The Artist on the Composer. Set to have its world premiere accompanied by live music ensembles on May 6, 7, and 8 in Stavros Niarchos Hall at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, the first trailer has now arrived, which features cinematography from Thodoros Mihopoulos (Kala azar).

Shot on the Greek island of Tinos in February 2020, the short also stars French actor Damien Bonnard (Staying Vertical) and features pieces by J.S. Bach / Knut Nystedt and Toshio Hosokawa,...