The screening will be followed by a discussion between Pr. Dimitris Papanikolaou and season curator Erifili Missiou.

Synopsis:

Katina, an impoverished Greek woman, tries to arrange the marriage of her shepherd son, Thanos, to Despina, the daughter of a wealthy landowner. But Despina’s father, Vlahopoulos refuses to give his blessings.

Curator’s note:

Shepherds of Calamity, (1967), also known as Thanos and Despoina and Oi Voskoi, is arguably Papatakis' finest work. The film was shot in rural Greece just before and during the military coup d'état. Admired by Claude Lévi-Strauss as a great ethnological film, it follows a conservative community's descent into riotous disorder after two young members refuse to abide by the established marital rules.  

Athina Rachel Tsangari:

In the straitjacket of a backward, brutal, conservative, and patriarchal society, in which the rural population is left to its misery, Thanos and Despina introduce the element of chaos and freedom. But freedom can only be expressed within the corset, which distorts and grotesquely shapes it. One must watch Thanos dance with his dead dog on his back. One must see how Despina, in a monologue, rejects the progressive ideas of her brother on sexuality - and these ideas take possession of her as she speaks. One must endure that the “amour fou” between Thanos and Despina is not without violence and remains marked by a structural unity of sadism and submission. One must understand that the exploding goat at the beginning contains the film’s “logic”: A closed system is forced to burst under internal pressure.

Hatred stands out as clearly as the bones of a carcass decomposing in the sun. Both among the rich and the poor, Papatakis (much like Buñuel) shows no sympathy for anyone.

Yorgos Lanthimos on The Shepherds of Calamity

Content Warning: The film contains animal violence, domestic abuse and  violent imagery.

Cast:
Olga Carlatos, George Dialegmenos, Vasos Andronidis, Lampros Tsangas, Elli Xanthaki, Tzavalas Karousos