Country: USA
Year: 2024
Duration: 101'
Yianni and Plousia (Joe Cortese and Julia Ormond) own a charming family diner by the beach Lately, Plousia has noticed that her husband of 40 years is not quite himself and is often wistfully distracted. One day, Yianni slips into a parallel realm, a world of his fractured mind, imagining himself as the host of a late-night talk show. The show features beloved diner staff and customers as guest stars. Plousia learns that Yianni is facing dementia but hides his illness from coworkers and best friends (Kevin Pollak and Rosanna Arquette). As his condition worsens, Plousia becomes Yianni’s full-time caregiver and lifeline. When a woman and her seven-year-old son move in across the street, Yianni is convinced that the young boy is the son they lost 30 years ago.
Biography
film director
Christina Eliopoulos
(Usa) is a writer-director and a first-generation Greek-American born in Asbury Park, New Jersey, explores a mythic Americana and its fractured dreamscapes in each project she creates. Her 2017 short film Tonight and Every Night is based on a true story, and was a festival favorite. Additionally, she directed and produced Demon on Wheels, a documentary feature about an older “reborn to be wild” hot rodder, his woman and the 1968 resto-Mod Mustang that comes between them. Her first doc feature, the award-winning Greetings from Asbury Park, is a personal look at how eminent domain affects a family and a small town, premiered on PBS in May 2009. In 2024 she directed the aubiographical drama Here’s… Yianni!. In addition to directing documentary shorts, brand films and commercials, she is the co-writer and co-creator of a 13-part television series, a supernatural drama entitled The Schaduwen,
FILMOGRAFIA
Demon on Wheels (2013), Tonight and Every Night (cm, 2017), Greetings from Asbury Park (2019), Here’s… Yianni! (2024).
Declaration
film director
“Here’s…. Yianni! is inspired by the story of my Greek parents, two nearly penniless dreamers who immigrated from their homeland and fell in love on the boardwalk of Asbury Park, NJ. One day, in the course of my father’s battle with dementia, he imagined himself to be Johnny Carson. My Mom, his first love, was celebrated as a “special guest star” on the show that played in his mind. She happily played along in a chair beside him as he would interview her. Mom and I often wondered if the “show” was a kind of storehouse for his fading memories or if creating the show somehow soothed his fractured mind. During the last years of his life, Mom became Dad’s fierce protector and lifeline. When Dad retreated further into the confines of his mind, Mom met him where he was residing. She was determined that no hardship or illness would deprive her or her husband one second of joy. That time, way back when, was lost to Dad, so Mom celebrated the new man in the here and now. She created new memories for herself, for Dad, and me. Over and over, she would remind me of an old Greek saying, ‘Life can be bitter. But love can make it sweet.’”
Cast
& Credits
DIRECTOR, SCREENPLAY: Christina Eliopoulos. CINEMATOGRAPHY: Russell
Swanson. EDITING: Mindy Elliott. PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Joe Lemmon.
COSTUMES: Mikael Sharafyan. MUSIC: Forrest Gray. CAST: Joe Cortese, Julia Ormond,
Eric Roberts, Sofia Vassilieva, Colleen Camp, Kevin Pollak, Rosanna Arquette.
PRODUCTION: Valerie Mccaffrey, Colleen Camp, Joe Cortese, Jason Ross Jallet.
CONTACT: Cinema Collet nancy@cinemacollet.co
