Makis Papadimitriou

Actor Makis Papadimitriou answers the big question "what should I watch tonight" by discussing with us his 5 favourite films. Is humor the answer to life's difficulties? Castaway on an island: scary or dreamy? Does he do graffiti? A conversation on religion, chickens, Koufonisia and pantomime.

Before writing a line, the director spent three years talking to terrorism experts, police and imams, and he came back with a farce. Riz Ahmed (“Sound of Metal”) stars in this comedy about would-be suicide bombers who want to blow up the West but can’t agree on how. — Omar works as a security guard in England and has made up his mind to die a martyr. He has a team, of sorts: his cousin Waj, who will go along with anything; Barry, an English convert convinced he should be giving the orders; and Faisal, who has plans of his own. What they’re after is an attack the whole country will be talking about. — Best British Debut Award | BAFTA Awards | 2011 Independent Camera Award for Best First Film | Karlovy Vary Film Festival | 2010

An exquisite specimen of cinema that expresses social and moral dilemmas through the Irani cinematic perspective and tradition. An elegy to the people we dreamt we would become but have buried deep inside instead. With awards at the Venice and Thessaloniki International Film Festivals. — A respectable medical examiner is involved in a car accident where an 8 year-old boy is injured. The man tries to reimburse the boy’s father and transport the child to the hospital, but to no avail. The next morning in the hospital, he encounters the body of the boy that had been sent there for an autopsy. The first ruling, however, indicates death by poison. — Best Director - Orizzonti | Venice Film Festival | 2017 Best Actor (Navid Mohammadzadeh) - Orizzonti | Venice Film Festival | 2017 FIPRESCI Prize | Thessaloniki Film Festival | 2017 Special Jury Award | Thessaloniki Film Festival | 2017

More political and humanist than ever, the tireless Ken Loach is looking for human worth behind the coldness of bureaucracy, statistics and numbers and rightfully wins the second Palme d’Or of his career in Cannes. — Daniel Blake is a 60-year-old carpenter from Newcastle. After a heart attack, he's going to need for the first time the help of the state to survive, but the convoluted bureaucracy is leading him nowhere. He crosses paths with a single mother with similar problems and, finding unexpected friendship and warmth in each other, they join forces and try to fight back. — Palme d'Or | Cannes Film Festival | 2016 Audience Award | Locarno Film Festival | 2016 Audience Award | San Sebastián Film Festival | 2016

Hayao Miyazaki picked a Dutch animator who had never directed a feature to make Studio Ghibli’s first film outside Japan, and it was Oscar-nominated. It’s almost wordless and dazzling to look at, the story of one man alone with nature and a red turtle that won’t let him go. — A castaway washes up on a beautiful desert island where the only other inhabitants are birds, reptiles and crabs. Every time he tries to escape on a raft, a red turtle stops him. Then the animal turns into a woman, and a feeling neither of them saw coming begins to grow between them. — Nominated for Best Animated Feature | Oscars | 2017 Audience Award | Athens International Film Festival | 2016 Special Mention | Athens International Film Festival | 2016 Special Jury Prize - Un Certain Regard | Cannes Film Festival | 2016

Another honest drama from the talented director Asghar Farhadi, awarded by the Academy with the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. A story so powerful that it touches your soul. — A couple is forced to leave their Tehran apartment, which is falling to pieces, and move into another one. While working together on the production of the play "Death of a Salesman", their relationship begins to change. — Best Foreign Language Film | Oscars | 2017 Best Actor (Shahab Hosseini) | Cannes Film Festival | 2016 Best Screenplay | Cannes Film Festival | 2016