Stratos

An ex-con works nights in a bread factory and days as a hitman, saving money to free his imprisoned friend. Then he learns his loyalty has been exploited. Economides' Berlin Competition entry is quieter and more controlled than anything before it — shot in stark black and white, with a stillness that makes the violence land harder. Closer to Melville than anything Greek cinema had produced before. The central performance by Vangelis Mourikis is extraordinary: a man who has reduced himself to function, discovering too late that he had something worth protecting.