Director: Jacqueline Lentzou

Stars: Sofia Kokkali, Lazaros Georgakopoulos

The feature debut from writer-director Lentzou feels a little affected at times, but boasts a luminous performance from Sofia Kokkali. She is Artemis, a young woman returning to Greece after some time away to visit her sick father in Athens. Dad, Paris (Georgakopoulos), has multiple sclerosis and is virtually helpless. As the only child of divorced parents, it looks like duty of care will fall to Artemis. A couple of archly amusing scenes show the snobby and charmless extended family interviewing hopelessly unqualified carers. Paris is initially impassive and uncommunicative, but as they spend more time together the relationship thaws. Intermittently, Lentzou inserts grainy home video footage and quotes from teenage Artemis’s diary to sketch the father and daughter’s turbulent shared history. The opening title card states the film is about ‘love, movement, flow, and the lack of them’ and accordingly there are no big scenes of emoting or emotional breakthrough here, just small shared intimate moments, particularly a lovely sequence when the duo bond while cracking up over their shared love of ice cream. It’s an impressive first feature and Kokkali is a magnetic presence.