Konstantinos Tzoumas Movies
- 1996
Pantelis Voulgaris wrote and directed this backstage melodrama, one of the most honored Greek films of the 1990s. The story takes place primarily at the Akropol theatre, the famous home of Greek musical revues, where the manager/producer, known as the Prince (Stavros Paravas), has just fired his drunken leading lady (Olga Damani), after finding her polluted one time too many. The Prince needs a replacement, and, in a quixotic moment, decides on Lakis Loizos (Lefteris Voyatzis), a one-time child movie star who specialized in comedy routines involving female impersonation. Lakis currently runs a casting agency, but is coaxed out of retirement and back into drag despite holding quite a large amount of bitterness toward the profession which turned its back on him years before. His act is a smashing success, which stirs up a great deal of resentment among the other actors. On the last night of the winter season, the Prince decides to stage a throwback to the days of classical Greek theater, a so-called alalum revue, a show in which anything can happen. Needless to say, Lakis' bitterness and all the other rivalries which had been building up during the season are trotted out on-stage to the bewilderment of a somewhat appalled crowd. Konstantinos Tzoumas and Despo Diamantidou co-star. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- 1989
This low-budget Greek drama from writer/director Stavros Tsiolis follows the wanderings of a 12-year-old runaway orphan named Vassilis (Tassos Miliotis), who escapes from an Athenian orphanage, explores the city, and then boards a train to roam the country. In the mountains of Arcadia, Vassilis meets a young woman (Olia Lazaridou), who joins him for a summer of exploration. Eventually, Vassilis decides to go to the house where his grandmother lived, only to find it empty and in a state of advanced disrepair. To add to his disappointment, Vassilis loses his traveling companion and heads for the city of Tripolis alone. There, he takes a series of odd jobs to survive, but can't find anything that pleases him or fills the emptiness in his soul. On his name day, Vassilis leaves Tripolis and begins to walk down the long road to his village. Konstantinos Tzoumas and Maria Panoutsou co-star. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tassos Miliotis, Olia Lazaridou, (more)
- 1988
This thriller concerns the attempts by current-day radio reporters to find out what really happened to the U.S.-based CBS reporter George Polk in 1948 when he tried to get an interview with the rebel side in the Greek Civil War. However, their investigations get them involved in uncovering political shenanigans in the present, and their lives are similarly endangered. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Agapi Manoura
- 1987
- R
In this adolescent-oriented drama, a young woman is forced to attend a posh finishing school in the Mediterranean. She vents her anger by rebelling against the cruel and sicko headmaster. When she discovers that he has been secretly photographing them naked and profiting from the pictures, she rallies the other girls and gets revenge. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tricia Leigh Fisher, Lisa Lorient, (more)
- 1986
By focusing on the changing attitudes of a college professor, director Stavros Tsiolis has created an interesting though not highly dramatic psychological tale. The Professor (Tassos Denegris) may not be the first academic to become disillusioned with the machinations of a large university, but he does decide to do something about his feelings: he drops out. He not only drops out of the academic world, he also withdraws from his friends and activities and the life going on around him. Only his daughter is able to get through and visit him. All the while he is working on some gesture that would effectively convey his reasons for taking this course of action. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Konstantinos Tzoumas, Katerina Tsioli, (more)
- 1985
The intensity of a young woman's feelings for her mentally ill sister provide the theme that is weighed in the balance in this compelling but downbeat drama. Agueliki's sister has been seriously disturbed for some time before the family decides to have her committed. Agueliki fights to have her sister put in a private clinic -- where the care is more personal -- but the family wins out in getting her into the forbidding state mental hospital. Unable to bear the thought of her sister's treatment in that institution, Agueliki manages to get her released into her own care, in her home -- even though it may create a schism between herself and her family. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Pemy Zouni, Betty Valassi, (more)
- 1983
In this well-crafted and excellently interpreted film, a group of jaded youth look for the meaning of life and yet throw away any chances of a meaningful existence by throwing away social norms: they steal, lie, cheat, and make love with either apathy or no concern for harming anyone else. The difficulty in accepting the film as anything more than a waste of time, no matter how well executed, is that the director Nicos Nicolaidis seems to be holding up the behavior of these eventually martyred youth as a standard to be emulated or admired -- and he maintains that young people like these men and women are making a statement against the fascist tendencies of modern society. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Takis Moschos
Based on a true story, this uneven but engaging musical drama sweeps through a turbulent 40 years in popular singer Marika Ninou's (Sotiria Leonardou) life -- and in the history of Greece -- starting with the singer's birth in Smyrna, Turkey in 1917. Ninou was deported to Greece along with all the other Greeks in Smyrna when she was only seven years old, and a few years later, her parents started a career as a musician and a singer in a nightclub/bar. In the short space of one decade, Ninou witnesses her father murder her mother, runs away from home, has a baby, and comes back to the nightclub to sing in an act with a childhood friend and a bouzouki player, Babis. Success finally comes big-time, but then Ninou's childhood friend is exiled for political reasons, and she and Babis leave for other venues. Although Ninou carries a torch for Babis, their relationship never seems to work out, and after many years and World War II go by, she sends her daughter away to a convent school and goes on a tour in America. At last, her fame may spread beyond the boundaries of Greece -- or so it seems. Sotiria Leonardou won the prize for "Best Actress" at the 1983 Thessaloniki Film Festival, for her portrayal of Ninou, and the film itself tied for "Best Picture," and won three other awards as well (two "Best Supporting Actor" prizes, and one for music). ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sotiria Leonardou, Michalis Maniatis, (more)
- 1979
Four friends between the ages of 40 and 50 meet after 20 years for a reunion in this drama with sex and violence added for exploitation value. Christos is a family man who makes a living as an actor. Constantine is a vagabond with a cynical outlook on life. Alkis is an aspiring poet who longs for the ideal woman and has fantasies about killing little girls. Rita has just emerged from an insane asylum and is obviously not cured after her stay. The principle characters manage to add humor to the potentially grim scenario. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alkis Panayotidis, Konstantinos Tzoumas, (more)
