The Towers

1834. In the mountains of Mani. Raised as a warrior since the heroic death of her mother and older brothers in the Greek war for independence, Anio is unwilling to submit to an arranged marriage for the sole purpose of securing a clan alliance and secretly rebels against her father’s will. She is prepared to flee to the mountains where she knows her hunting skills will enable her to survive. 

But when Ioannis, her only living brother, returns to the village from Paris, leaving behind him a life of intellectual and artistic refinement, she believes that she has finally found an ally. Ioannis is the sole heir to the Florakeas war tower, but is, himself, not fit for combat due to an old injury at the temporal lobe which causes him to have occasional hallucinatory seizures, but which has, on the other hand, oddly accentuated his intellectual capacities. For that reason, he was sent to study veterinary medicine in Paris. Now, at the request of their father, he has returned, bringing with him a crate of French rifles. Once home, he finds himself caught up in a web of feuds and interconnected vendettas that he is ill-prepared to cope with.  What is more, his sister Anio, whom he idolizes, is now being used as a bargaining chip in a clan trade-off for power and weapons, and her wedding is imminent.

In reuniting, sister and brother revive a loving, symbiotic relationship from their childhood. But it soon becomes tainted by the desperate self-righteousness which Ioannis harbours deep in his soul. Emboldened by the irreverent romanticism of his Parisian milieu, Ioannis seduces Anio. Marginal and renegade in this primitive society, they establish a doomed pact: «Love me or kill me!» Confusing dream and reality, they tragically destroy themselves and all that remains of their clan. A fusional relationship that would rather prevail at all costs than submit to archaic patriarchal rule.