EDEN IS WEST
From the Aegean Sea
to the shining lights of Paris… one man's odyssey to a better life.
"I
wanted this film to be like an Odyssey. A little like Ulysses, my character crosses
the sea, braving storms and other tribulations. He faces down modern monsters
and challenges the myths of our era. Ulysses' was a journey home, whereas Elias
wants to find a new home. Today, many men and women are forced to uproot themselves
and then put down roots elsewhere. To leave is to die a little, but to immigrate
is to die and be reborn in another place. The film's hero, Elias, is faced with
a different, unknown world - our world - and, through his eyes, we see it in a
fresh and critical way. In the end, we are forced to take a look at ourselves."
Director Costa-Gavras
Over the course of his long and legendary
career, the Greek director Costa-Gavras (Z, Missing, Music Box) has won almost
every single major international accolade, including the Academy Award, the BAFTA,
Berlin's Golden Bear and Cannes' Palme d'Or. Now at the age of 76, he returns
with perhaps his most personal film, and his sense of social engagement has never
been stronger. The hardships suffered by illegal immigrants to Europe have been
well recorded by the cinema, but Eden Is West memorably captures the magical nature
of the world that one young man encounters in which every experience is full of
both promise and threat. Just like in The Odyssey, it is in The Aegean Sea that
the adventures of Elias (Riccardo Scamarcio) begin. A rusting trawler packed with
clandestine men, women and children slowly approaches the bright lights of an
emerging shore; we may not know where they all began, but we know where they hope
they're going: the West, an actual as well as mythical place.
For
Elias, this will literally be Eden Club Paradise, the name of the resort at which
he wakes up, from where he will begin his extraordinary journey to reach Paris,
taking him across a microcosm of contemporary Europe. Costa-Gavras has crafted
an epic story for our times: one full of heart, humour and wondrous complexities.
