——UPGRADED——
Young Voula and her five-year-old brother Alexandros board a train from Athens bound for Germany, in search of their father, whom they have never met. Over the course of this coming-of-age road trip through Greece, the two determined youngsters will learn several of life’s lessons – some of them rather harsher than others.
After spending three nightmarish years in a concentration camp, Petros Kazakos, a WWII survivor, returns to his hometown to avenge his betrayal. As the murderer flees the police seeking refuge in the rugged and desolate mountains, he will cross paths with two other fugitives, the hardened revolutionary and escape convict, Kosmas, and the young farmer with the haunting past, Argiris. Their only hope for survival and a fresh start is to cross over the vast sea where freedom lies; however, the lack of money will soon force the unlikely band to stain their hands with blood. Now, only death can purge their souls, but is all hope lost?
The third part of Euripides’ trilogy relates Orestes’ confrontation with the people of Argos after killing his mother Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus, and his struggle to defend himself and his heritage – with the support of his sister, Electra.
After his release from prison, Stathis visits a private investigator, Othonas, whom he had assigned many years ago to find his mother, who has been missing from the time of the German Occupation. When he meets Othonas, however, they quarrel because the detective hadn’t worked seriously enough on the case. Afterwards, Stathis takes control of his old gang again and sets up a few new scams, selling dreams and hopes to simple people. He soon realizes that he has lost his old love, Vana, who, while he was in prison, had become involved with his second-in- command, Michalis. Nevertheless, his bitterness is softened by Stella, Vana’s sister, who works at the Red Cross.
Four stories, humorous, romantic or dramatic, are linked by a counterfeit gold sovereign. It is made by the honest engraver in the first story, seduced by the charms of a young widow, and it subsequently passes into the hands of a beggar and a prostitute, a wealthy miser and a newly married couple where the husband is a poor artist.
