The best Michalis Maniatis’s movies

The story of a group of Rembetes, singers and musicians of the Greek equivalent to the blues, in the early decades of the 20th century, seen through the eyes of a young female singer.

The film is the story of a group of soldiers, who, in the course of their compulsory military service in 1967 and 1968, before and during the military dictatorship in Greece, are assigned to the then recently founded Armed Forces Television. This TV station, founded for the civilian population, was run by the Cinematographic Unit of the army which until then had only produced propaganda films and newsreels and was responsible for entertaining the troops and other charity organizations with movie screenings. The personnel was composed mostly of soldiers, who already had experience in the film business in their civilian lives, as well as those who received their training in the army. The story may be only 95% true, but that is simply because the true story is even more absurd...

Twenty-year-old homosexual Angelos, who works in a jewelry shop, lives very discreetly in a rather hostile social environment. When he falls in love with a sailor, Michalis, he decides to leave home, abandoning his alcoholic father, his hysterical mother and his disabled sister, to live with his lover. Later on, he will also join the army. A former lover of his visits him and tells him things about Michalis. At a party, Michalis forces Angelos to dress up as a woman. Later on, Angelos ends up on the street with other transvestites. He gets arrested and expelled from the Navy, while his father kills himself out of shame. His clients often humiliate him, and his lover beats him brutally.Angelos, in despair, decides to kill Michalis..The film is based on true facts that shocked Greek public opinion.