Olympia
Director Stavros Psillakis
Countries Greece
Duration 45 min
Synopsis
Olympia, already three months pregnant at 33 years old, finds out she's been struck by lung cancer. After much hesitation, she decides not to abort and a healthy baby is born. Four months later, without any signs of the cancer letting up, Psillakis and his crew are encouraged by her doctor to spend four days with her and her family, capturing whatever the situation will allow. Following "METAXA Listening to Time", the deeply sensitive documentary filmmaker returns with another film about cancer patients. Both are about the fear of death, not just the characters' but the filmmaker's as well. If the first film spoke indirectly to "...the Greeks who made oestrum of life out of the fear of death" (A.Embirikos), "Olympia" evades moralizations in favor of more fundamental human elements that only silence can express.
Olympia, already three months pregnant at 33 years old, finds out she's been struck by lung cancer. After much hesitation, she decides not to abort and a healthy baby is born. Four months later, without any signs of the cancer letting up, Psillakis and his crew are encouraged by her doctor to spend four days with her and her family, capturing whatever the situation will allow. Following "METAXA Listening to Time", the deeply sensitive documentary filmmaker returns with another film about cancer patients. Both are about the fear of death, not just the characters' but the filmmaker's as well. If the first film spoke indirectly to "...the Greeks who made oestrum of life out of the fear of death" (A.Embirikos), "Olympia" evades moralizations in favor of more fundamental human elements that only silence can express.