Ulysses’ Gaze

In Ithaca, a modern-day Odysseus, also known as film director A., sets out to find old images of the Balkans, believing that the new ones, filled with the horrors of war, have lost their innocence. He travels through Bulgaria and Romania and reaches Belgrade, where he discovers that the Yugoslav cinema holds film rolls shot by Milton Manaki at the beginning of the century.

However, all attempts to develop this film have been unsuccessful. The images only appear briefly and then disappear. As A. searches for these pictures, he is surrounded by the terrible echoes of war. In Belgrade, he meets a friend who is a Greek war correspondent, and then encounters the old director of the Cinematheque in a nursing home, a man who lives in the memories of the past. He learns that the war in Sarajevo has captured Manaki's film rolls. Despite the dangers, A. makes his way to Sarajevo, where he manages to find the film rolls.

However, he is no longer certain that the answers to his questions, and the questions of the Balkans, lie within them.

CAST

Harvey Keitel – A
Maia Morgenstern – KALI
Erland Josephson – LIBRARY CURATOR
Giorgos Mihalakopoulos – NIKOS
Ljuba Tadić – MR JOVIČIĆ

CREW

Director: Theodoros Angelopoulos
Producers: Dragan Ivanović, Éric Heumann, Herbert G. Kloiber
Writers: Theodoros Angelopoulos, Tonino Guerra, Petros Markaris, Giorgio Silvagni, Kaii Tsitseli