Reviews I WILL CROSS TOMORROW A deeply human refugee story by
Iranian filmdirector Sepideh Farsi
Luxembourgish Film Festival
France, Greece, Luxembourg, Netherlands, 2019 / 90 min
/ Greek, English & Arabic OV with French subt. / drama
The brief but intense encounter of a Greek police officer
and a Syrian refugee changes the way the two see this world.
Maria is a Greek policewoman, struggling with her money problems, teenage daughter, old
mother and the crisis in her country; Yussof is a Syrian rebel, on his way out of a war-ridden Syria to go
to Europe. Both have killed unwantedly, both feel guilty, but together, they will find some inner peace.
Maria is a Greek police officer, single mom and only child. She juggles between her
money problems, her teenage daughter and her old mother amidst the financial crisis in her
country.
When the police station she is working at is being closed, she has to accept a new
job on the island of Lesbos, far away in the Aegean Sea, and leave her daughter
behind in Athens.
At her new posting in a refugee camp on the island,
her path crosses the one of Yussof, a young Syrian rebel who fled his war-ridden
country to avoid being obliged to kill, now hoping for a new life in Europe.
But Yussof
comes to realise that Greece isn’t the safe haven he made it out to be. As the two get to know each other, they come to realise that they share a traumatising
secret they both feel guilty for.
Their
encounter will be brief but intense, and change the way they see this world.
Crew
Image: Pantelis Mantzanas
Sound: Gerben Kokmeijer
Costume: Mayou Trikerioti
Decor: Spiros Laskaris
Montage: Bonita Papastathi
Music: Eric Truffaz
Cast: Vassilis Koukalani,
Marisha Triantafyllidou, Hanna M. Issa, Lydia Fotopoulou, Alexandros Vardaxoglou, Vaia Kathiotou,
Marina Argyropoulou
***
Born in Tehran, Iran, Sepideh Farsi moved to Paris in 1984 to study mathematics, but soon drifted towards cinema. After several
years of photography, she started directing several short films, before shooting her first documentary,
Homi D. Sethna, Filmmaker (2000) which won several awards. Followed by Harat (2007) and Tehran
Without Permission (2009) that both premiered in Locarno.
Her first two features Dreams of Dust (2003)
and The Gaze (2006)
premiered in Rotterdam. She then directed The House Under the Water (2010), followed by Red Rose (2014),
premiering at Toronto International Film Festival in 2014, followed by Despo, Labros, Spyridoula &
Papandreou (2015), a vibrant portrait of contemporary Greece.
Her last documentary 7 Veils (2017) won the
French Competition’s Grand Prix at the Marseille Festival of Documentary Film.