GREECE, 16min, Canada, Drama
Directed by Sarah Deakins

On a rainy afternoon in a British nursing home, a woman struggles to make a last connection with her seemingly catatonic mother.

“A tribute to the complicated relationships between parents and children with moving dialogue and expressions…A deeply personal journey with beautiful cinematography.”
– Best Shorts Competition

Watch the Audience FEEDBACK Video of GREECE from the FEEDBACK Film Festival:

Movie Review by Amanda Lomonaco:

This film hits near and dear to my heart. With many family members who have suffered from Alzheimer’s and dementia, I am all too familiar with the struggles and frustrations the disease can cause on victims, family members, and caretakers alike. Sarah Deakins has done a fantastic job in portraying these struggles through an incredibly simple, yet equally powerful screenplay.

I suppose my personal experience with this illness creates an obvious bias towards this film, but it wasn’t so much the subject matter that drew me to this film so much as the way the subject matter was treated. I felt that Deakins did an exceptional job in portraying a very realistic, emotional scenario without dipping too far into cliché. It was all very believable, very clear, and very close to the reality of what families can experience when a loved one is suffering from Alzheimer’s.

The performances contributed greatly to sharp sense of realness of the short. This is particularly surprising for a film supported almost entirely by a monologue from one of the characters. Deakin’s superimpositions of the fantasy images that are going through each of the character’s heads only magnify the already brilliant cinematography of Greece, luring you in further.

Greece is not an excessively dramatic film, though it speaks of quite a terrible tragedy. It doesn’t take you on a crazy emotional journey, but it still tugs, ever so gently, at your heart. It’s a warm cup of tea on a quiet, melancholy, cold day. It might make you tear up a bit, it might make you appreciate your parents or your grandparents more, it might bore you or not affect you at all. Still it’s worth a watch, a thoughtful, reflective watch, when you’re in the mood for some more serious pondering. If nothing else I hope it reminds you to enjoy your life and appreciate it for all it is and for all you can do within it, because one day you might not be able to anymore.