Writer & Director: Akrivi Kollia

Production: Kalliergon

Title: IKESIA (SUPPLICATION)

Film: Short Film

Genre: drama, horror

Status: Pre-production

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Tagline: With fear and love...

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Logline: Helen bleeds and flees to an old Orthodox Christian Church to save herself from her violent husband who is stalking her. Her meeting there with a mysterious woman will reveal to her a fate from which she cannot escape.

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Director’s note: The film deals with the issue of the attitude of some women towards the gender-based violence against them. Feminine nature has been identified for centuries with the concept of submission and sin. Unfortunately, even in today's modern culture, these ideas have not died out. On the contrary, many cases of violence against women take place every day, reaching the extreme of murder. However, many stubbornly turn a blind eye, continuing to perpetuate these anachronistic ideas, blaming the victim rather than the perpetrator.

Among the accusers, of course, there is no lack of cases of women who cover up crimes in the name of the male-master. They close their eyes, raising patient daughters and energetic sons. Thus, when the patient daughters come of age they tolerate the dynamic sons, in the name of love or even fear. But the need for survival is stronger. This also happens in the case of Eleni, when she is looking for shelter. But as Stratos asks her to forgive him, even in death, she is ready to return to him. Like many women accept violence in the name of a "sick" love.

Religion has always been and continues to be the refuge for patient daughters. But this is in contrast to the Christian doctrine, where all human beings are equal in the eyes of God, whom they invoke. For Anna, this equality never existed. He continues to pray as a sinful supplicant, waiting for "atonement." Accordingly, the mother desperately invokes the aunts for her dead daughter, in a crime in which she unwittingly becomes complicit.

The women in the precincts of the Temple represent the timelessness of violence against women, through the reproduction of macho patterns mediated by the woman-mother herself. These women, victims of their willful blindness, are intended to be shown in this film, with the hope of female awakening in modern civilized society. The color palette, the use of light and perspective in Byzantine iconography are the main inspiration for the film's photographic approach. The stern faces, dark colors and divine light emphasize the dramatic changes in the lives of the heroines, enhancing the viewer's emotion.