EMERGING GREEKS COMPETITION

Behind the Haystacks – by Asimina Proedrou

Friday, March 22nd 2024, 5:15 p.m., Hall 1

Repetition: Saturday, March 23rd 2024, 5:45 p.m., Hall 2

-> Tickets here!

A middle-aged fisherman living on Greece’s northern border and drowning in debt, starts smuggling migrants across the border lake in exchange for a hefty fee. His wife, a housewife and devout churchgoer, is seeking the truth in God’s word, while their daughter tries to define her own life within an oppressive environment. Until a tragic incident strikes the family, pushing the three heroes to face their own personal impasses and weaknesses, whilst having to consider, for the first time in their life, the price they have to pay for their actions.

Asimina Proedrou

Asimina Proedrou was born in 1982, in Athens. She studied music, international economics and film directing. Her short film Red Hulk (2013), which was produced, written and directed by herself, won the Best Short Film Awards at two major film festivals in Greece. It was officially selected by more than 60 international film festivals, including Clermont-Ferrand (International Competition 2014), and won seven international awards. Her debut feature film Behind the Haystacks screened at the 63rd Thessaloniki International Film Festival (Greek premiere) in November 2022, where it won six awards including Fipresci Award, and at the 53rd International Film Festival of India (Goa) (international premiere), where it won the Best Debut Feature Award. The film recently won ten awards at the Hellenic Film Academy Awards, including the prestigious Best Film Award. This achievement also marks a record-breaking number of nominations in the history of the awards, as the film got a nod in a whopping 17 categories.