Stone Years

Director:  Pantelis Voulgaris
Cast: Τhemis Βazaka, Dimitris Katalifos,  Maria Martika, Eirini Inglesi, Nikos Birbilis
Greece, 1985, DCP, 135’, renkli / color
Greek with Turkish and English subtitles   

The true story of a couple’s love and commitment told against the background of turbulent Greek politics from the end of the civil war to the fall of the military dictatorship. Thessaly, 1954: Eleni and Babis meet and fall in love. She is 18 years old and he is 22. Soon afterwards Babis is arrested for illegal activity and sentenced to a long prison term. Eleni, who is also wanted, ends up in Athens where she lives as a fugitive. At the end of ‘66 Babis is released and it is then that they consummate their love for the first time. Eleni, becomes pregnant. But a moment of carelessness results in her being discovered. She is tried, convicted and sent to Averoff prison. There she will give birth to their child and she will raise it with the help or the other female political prisoners, who find them- selves incarcerated in Averoff prison after the colonels’ coup or 1967. Babis, who has gone underground after the coup, is arrested and confined in the men’s wing of Averoff prison. There he is able to see his child for the first time through the prison bars, from a distance. After repeated attempts they manage to obtain permission to marry and the wedding takes place in prison. It is not until 1974, after the fall of the junta, that they are finally able to live together when their son is 7 years old.