Standing Aside, Watching
Description
Subtly referencing both classical Greek tragedy and Westerns, Standing Aside, Watching is propelled by a fiery female protagonist who finds herself incompatible with the bleak, rural world around her. After struggling to make ends meet in Athens, youthful 30-something Antigone retreats to a small seaside town to start over. All appears calm but as the lone man she encounters at the train station predicts, there’s a storm coming. Antigone finds a job alongside her old friend Eleni and soon meets handsome young Nikos who works at the local scrap yard. This village was happier once, uncomplicated and lived-in, but now it’s nearly a ghost town: buildings are masked with graffiti and the forest has burned down. Antigone quickly discovers an undercurrent of festering tension centering on Nondas, the scrap yard boss. As the place has decayed, so too has the vitality of its residents, their sense of stagnation and hopelessness allowing the abusive Nondas to wield crippling power over their lives. Having experienced a world beyond this provincial place, Antigone refuses to passively witness an increasing pattern of violence and injustice, recklessly challenging Nondas’s influence. Director Yorgos Servetas updates the classical theme of principled moral rebellion and delivers an unflinching take on the shifting balance of power between men and women in contemporary, austerity-era Greece. –Laura Henneman
Yorgos Servatas was pursuing a computer engineering degree when he took up photography and later, filmmaking. He made three short films at the Stavrakos Film School in Athens before completing his first feature The Way Things Are Determined in 2008. The experimental piece screened in the Thessaloniki International Film Festival’s DigitalWave Competition. Servatas teaches Information Technology in Greece while continuing to make films. Standing Aside, Watching is his second feature.
Trailer
//player.vimeo.com/video/88114064?autoplay=1Film Details
Language Greek
Original Language Title Na kathese ke na kitas
Year 2013
Runtime 90
Country Greece
Director Yorgos Servetas
Producer Fenia Cossovitsa, Konstantinos Kontovrakis
Writer Yorgos Servetas
Editor Panos Voutsaras
Cinematographer Claudio Bolivar
Music io
Cast Marina Symeou, Yorgos Kafetzopoulos, Marianthi Pantelopoulou
Print Source Blonde audiovisual productions S.A./ fenia@blonde.gr