Strella

This is the first Greek film I've had the privilege of watching. It is also the best film I've watched this year.

For me the film is about families, and how we cope when we find ourselves outside of traditional structures (of course there probably never was such a thing as a traditional family). Although many of the films characters are LGBT I would not describe this as being an LGBT film. The characters may be gay or trans, but it is simply a facet of them, mentioned in passing, and not their core identity.

There is a big twist in the middle, and my initial reaction on seeing it was that it really spoilt the film. However, 10 minutes later to my surprise there was another twist which pulled everything back perfectly. Not many screenwriters can manage to pull off something as complex as that.

Mina Orfanu is wonderfully cast as Strella. This is not an easy part to play and she carries it off with great alacrity, despite not being a professional actress.

It is a great achievement that, despite the sometimes extremely dark subject matter I left this film with a big grin. If only Hollywood would make films like this!

I think it is a great movie and a very important piece in Greek cinematography and not only Greek, in the global context as well. The way the movie ends is also very important towards creating a better climate and alternative solutions for trans gender people. It breaks the usual pattern of ends that are common to the movies related with LGBTQI people, and I think it's very healthy. A lot of familiar faces, the stars of Koukles, Yannis Kokiasmenos' and Mina Orfanou's acting was a blast! Good luck to the director, the crew and actors, hope to see more great movies made by them. Big thanks! And p.s. to the puritan who says he is not one:)there is something more important than the so called hubris, and that is what they wanted to portray, I guess.

I'm not conservative, I'm not a puritan, I'm tolerant and liberal, but I do have some limits and this film surpassed them.

I want to emphasize I do not mean the transsexual theme, which is absolutely fine, after all I did enjoy The Crying Game. I mean the twist in the plot, which I do not want to reveal for those who haven't seen the movie but it did make a very bad impression to me. This was WAY too much and spoiled my movie experience. This was bordering sickness. I can't believe such a sick twist was airbrushed in all the reviews I happened to read about this movie. And for what is worth, I also enjoyed Oldboy.

Anyway, art is art, but be prepared. For me only redeeming aspects if you manage to take the scenario out of the picture is Mina Orfanou's performance and the competent direction.

This is the story of Giorgos, an ex-convict who has spent more than fifteen years in prison, sentenced for a crime of honor, and Strella, a transsexual call girl. The opening scene, as Giorgos kisses good-bye his cellmate, is when the viewer is prepared for macho-looking Giorgos' sexual orientations or –if you want- his upcoming "tolerance" to the fact that Strella is not a common girl. Giorgos wouldn't possibly react the way Fergus reacted in Neil Jordan's "Crying Game". As Giorgos is set free to "live his myth" in the dirty city, walking among the human and the urban garbage, one can smell the urine in the narrow mean streets, downtown Athens. Soon, as Giorgos attempts to find more about the whereabouts of his long lost son, one suspects that the film is intended to be a modern version of a Greek tragedy, except it will not be, because Strella knows better! Fortunately, "deus ex machina" will not be required. Humans ought to deal with their issues by themselves, this time. The supporting characters are never becoming grotesque despite the fact that they are queer and that Death is flirting with them throughout the film. Even Strella's impersonation of Maria Callas in its falseness has a bizarre dignity and proves to be a successful tightrope walking mainly –in my opinion- because it has nothing in common and at any time with any of the Almodόvar's transvestite characters. All in all, "Strella" is a worth seeing film and one of those every so often moments the Greek cinematography surprises pleasantly.

I had the honour to see that movie at it's world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival. This surprising story of a man coming out of jail and falling in love with a transsexual is excellently written and surprisingly well played. Nearly all the actors are amateurs, but who needs trained actor with a cast like that: Especially Mina Orfanou in the role of 'Strella' is a revelation. Panos Koutras finds a way to tell a complicated story and to keep the audience interested in the main characters without following paths of Pedro Almodovar, though both have the wicked humor in common and both obviously love a good melodramatic story line every now and then. And he knows how to end a story, something that isn't often seen in queer movies nowadays. I sincerely hope 'Strella' will find a broader audience as it is clever and entertaining.