«The Slaughter of the Cock»

Georges Corraface as Evagoras
Also staring: Valeria Golino, Seymour Cassel, Dimitris Velios, Matthias Habich, Popi Avraam, Imma Piro, Gerassimos Skiadaressis
Directed by: Andreas Pantzis
Produced by: Greek Film Centre, Kourion Films, Pyramid International Ltd. (Greece), P.A. Stephania Film Productions Ltd., the Cyprus Film Board, Lumiere Services Ltd. (Cyprus), Nutrimenti Terrestri (Italy), Ishkov Films Ltd., G.V.S. Movies (Bulgaria), Maram for Cinema and TV (Syria)
Distributed by: Greek Film Centre
Date: 1996
Awards:
– Ministry of Culture of Greece
 : Best Film of the Year for 1997.
– Academy Award Competition : Greece nomination for the Oscars for Best Foreign Film in 1998.
– 37th Salonika Intl. Film Festival : Best Film – Best Direction – Best Female Role (Valeria Golino) – Best Male Role (George Corraface)
– Barcelona Film Festival and Market (1997): Best European Feature Film of the Year.
– Rome Mediterranean Film Festival (1997) : Espressione Artistica Award.

A range of sexuality and powerful emotions are found in this dark psychological drama, which focusses on one man’s personal tragedy.

Filmed in Cyprus, Syria and Dubai, “Slaughter of the Cock” made its world-wide premiere as an official selection at the Locarno International Film Festival, and has since been selected for numerous prestigious film festivals and received top recognition, including Greece’s Oscar nomination for the 1998 Best Foreign Film. It is a love story, a tale of the North and South, and a look at the darker consequences of the “American dream”. In this long, intimate, beautifully-filmed movie, director Andreas Pantzis believes that George has created the best role yet in his career.

“It is a study of self-betrayal which sets Evagoras up for an involvement in a vicious circle of exploitive relationships,” Georges explains of his starring portrayal. Evagoras is a woodcarver and cabinet maker in Cyprus, where drought and war take their toll on the land and its inhabitants. With his best friend, played by Dimitris Velios, Evagoras succumbs to the lure of money, power and sexual gratification, personified by a perverse and wealthy American novelist, Eustache Achille (Seymour Cassel), who exploits the two young men physically and mentally. Evagoras’ “sell-out” isn’t the result of any particular isolated incident; rather, he is a man who has strayed off his path, and each betrayal paves the way for more compromises and submissions.

Evagoras has also submitted to a comfortable routine in which loss of personal integrity has no significance. He becomes sick with self-loathing, and covers his shame with cynicism; just as he conceals his corruption from others, he conceals it from himself. A cruel reminder of his humiliation drives Evagoras over the edge. He commits a murder, therein sealing the sordid vicious circle which surrounds him. Shortly thereafter, he is thrown together by circumstance with a deaf-mute village girl (Valeria Golino). His efforts to communicate with her force Evagoras to express himself honestly and simply. He is awakened to a need to restore integrity in his life through this encounter with a forceful yet innocent being.

In an attempt to bring about his redemption, and enter the world of the woman he loves, Evagoras commits a dramatic, irrational act of mutilation. In so doing he also sets the stage for his undoing. “What particularly attracted me to the role of Evagoras was this desperate side of someone caught in a dramatic struggle to conceal and to reveal himself : to conceal the truth – about crimes committed – and to reveal the truth – about new-found love,” George explains. “How to welcome the purity of love when one does not feel worthy? This is Evagoras’ dilemma because he encounters a person who gives his life a new meaning.”