Tailor

At 50 years old, Nikos seems to have fallen out of time: The long-established Athenian tailor only makes bespoke suits: made from high-quality fabric, perfectly cut and priced accordingly. Together with his elderly father, Nikos runs a store that the bank is already threatening to foreclose on because he is increasingly running out of customers - the competition from cheap ready-made goods from China or Bangladesh is too great. Nikos has to come up with something - and he finds his niche: female customers would still be willing to spend money on wedding dresses. Based on the principle that if the philosopher doesn't come to the mountain, the mountain will come to the philosopher, Nikos constructs a traveling tailor's workshop and visits his customers directly at home. German-Greek director Sonia Liza Kenterman's small, but very fine, detailed film tells the story of a love story that develops between Nikos and the mother of a young daughter. The backdrop of the omnipresent economic crisis in Greece today unfolds just as unobtrusively. In quietly comedic scenes and with partly fairytale-like tones, the delightful departure of an outsider who has to reinvent himself once again - in a coming of age delayed by 30 years - unfolds. “The gentle hero's inner awakening is accompanied by an aesthetic liberation of the film, which received the FIPRESCI Prize and two other awards at the Thessaloniki Film Festival: It moves from the dark interior of the store, where the camera lovingly shows us the old shelves and fine fabrics, out onto the bright streets and bustling markets of Athens and later into the lively suburbs. Especially in the opening section, with its largely silent, humorous narration, Kenterman pays homage to her role models: Jacques Tati, Buster Keaton and French comedies of the 1960s. As soon as Nikos enters the hustle and bustle of the streets and gets closer to Olga, the production becomes warmer, more dramatic and more upbeat. This is also where Nikos Kypourgos' light-footed, sometimes burlesque music unfolds its strongest effect.” (Reinhard Kleber, on: filmdienst.de)