The Black Stone, like the one that Panos, an OAED employee who mysteriously disappears, decides to throw behind him, is the title of a new film by Spyros Yacovides. The Greek director is very excited these days as his first feature film will try to captivate the general public after the festivals he has participated in. In his story, of course, the main character is not … disappeared, but those who remained, primarily Mama Harula (Eleni Kokkidu).

“In my opinion, the film has three levels. The first and main one is connected with the famous Greek mother. I am very interested in this character, who is almost always caricatured in the movies, and his influence on our society is actually huge. The second concerns family roles, which are acquired and changed consciously or unconsciously over time. The eldest son becomes the protector of the family with the death of his father, the youngest sacrifices himself so that Harula continues to feel like a mother, and so on. And the third level is the Greek reality, this rich, complex, dysfunctional situation that we all face. Part of that is the issue of civil servants, which is also rarely touched upon in films,” Mr. Yacovides tells us.

At the beginning of the film, two directors go to work for Panos and then meet his mother, promising to help her find her child. From now on, we follow the events on our own documentary record. “I have always loved mockumentaries that tell a story by combining comedy with drama. Using the documentary form, the viewer has a slight illusion that he is watching a real story, which thus becomes more accessible. Humor serves the same purpose. I don’t think I’ll ever do pure drama, I’m not interested in that genre.”

There are three levels in the film, the first and main one is connected with the famous Greek mother – almost always in the movie she is presented in a caricature.

As we said, of course, the focus here is Harula, a character played wonderfully by Eleni Kokkidu. “She is an absolutely classic Greek mother. However, we tried to get deeper into the character, to understand why it works the way it does. The main thing I think about these women, especially the generations immediately before them, is that because of the harsh patriarchal conservative societies that raised them, they were forced to live other people’s lives: their husbands, their children, and so on. . Most of them failed to fulfill their dreams and aspirations – a life they never lived. At the same time, they built around themselves a living wage system that largely replaced the inefficient welfare state. As for Eleni Kokkidou, watching her work was a real gift for me. It is rare to see an actress who has no “attachment” to her image and is ready, like an empty bottle, to be filled with any character. I believe he can play anything,” says Yakovides.

new reality

Another character is Michalis, an Afro-Greek taxi driver who helps out the family and is played by rapper Negros from Moria, aka Kevin. “Unlike Harula, Michalis is a child who has taken his life into his own hands. For me, this is a new Greek reality. The Greek-Africans who were born here went to school and, of course, are absolutely Greek. Kevin himself feels the same way.”

However, how difficult is it to shoot your first film in Greece in 2023, where the public is likely to systematically “snobbish” domestic production? “In total, it took me seven years to make the film. Of course, I read somewhere that the average for Europe is about the same, and this comforted me. Now the public, to a certain extent, justifies me. He has eaten his face many times with Greek films – I speak from personal experience – often terribly hypocritical and insincere. One of my motivations in cinema is to make films better than what I see. As well as films that excite the audience and have a share of humor. Somewhere it is necessary to break all this drama, because life itself, in addition to drama, is also very funny.