loading loading...

From The Edge Of The City Details

1998 Certificate 18
  • Rated:
  • 50
  • from 918 members

A powerful, raw film about a group of outcast teenagers living in Menidi, a predominately Greek-Russian suburb near Athens, Greece. Filmed with a pseudo-documentary style, the actors gathered together by Giannaris had no prior acting experience. Because of this, the resulting performances are even more honest and believable. .. Read more

Starring Simela Chartomatsidi, Vasias Eleftheriadis, Konstantinos Giannaris
Director Constantine Giannaris
Genres Drama, World Cinema

Sign up From The Edge Of The City DVD

Buy From: £6.93

loading loading...

From The Edge Of The City cover art

From The Edge Of The City

A powerful, raw film about a group of outcast teenagers living in Menidi, a predominately Greek-Russian suburb near Athens, Greece. Filmed with a pseudo-documentary style, the actors gathered together by Giannaris had no prior acting experience. Because of this, the resulting performances are even more honest and believable. This was Greece's official entry for consideration for the Best Foreign Film Academy Award in 1999.

Starring Simela Chartomatsidi, Vasias Eleftheriadis, Konstantinos Giannaris
Director Constantine Giannaris
Studio MILLIVRES MULTIMEDIA / LACE
Run time DVD: 1 hr 33 mins
Certificate Certificate 18
Genres Drama, World Cinema
Language DVD: Greek, Russian
Subtitles DVD: English
Released DVD: 17 Sep 2001
Production year: 1998
Format DVD

  • Critics' reviews (2) of From The Edge Of The City

    View all
  • 3 stars out of 5

    If this stark study of disenfranchised Russian émigrés operating on the outskirts of Athens proves anything, it's that, as far as cinema is concerned, the counterculture of the streets is the same no matter where you are. In following the misfortunes of a gang of pill-popping, petty thieving rent boys, director Constantinos Giannaris employs a technique that combines neorealistic episodes with talking head interviews and frantic time-lapse codas. While this adds immediacy to the authenticity, it distracts from the dramatic implications of Stathis Papadopoulos's dangerous liaison with frosty prostitute Theodora Tzimou and her ambitious pimp, Dimitris Papoulidis.

    • Radio Times
    • Posted 29 Jan 2006

  • In the immigrant ghettos outside Athens, kids seek kicks fast and furiously. Sasha from Kazakhstan like sex, drugs and... read more on Time Out

    • Time Out
    • Posted 04 Nov 2008

  • Most helpful member's review of From The Edge Of The City

    View all
  • 6 out of 8 people found this review helpful

    Rated - 2 stars

    Disappointing

    The movie is about Russian-Greek street kids living in an immigrant suburb on the edge of Athens. An unseen interviewer asks questions and talks to them about their lives, drug use, etc.

    We follow one hustler, Sasha, as he negotiates his way through family life, work and play. Sasha's traditionalist father can't understand his son's slacker lifestyle, but disapproval only strengthens the youth's resolve to rebel. When he isn't turning tricks, Sasha is paid by a pimp to look after his Russian whore, a girl Sasha quickly develops a crush on. Sasha and the rest vehemently deny they're homosexual. They're selling themselves to pay for drugs and material goods. However for some anyway it's more complicated.

    The camera clearly loves the young actor playing Sasha, and it's a stylish film. I particularly enjoyed Sasha's dream sequences, from his boyhood in Kazakhstan. There's a political dimension to this film I was too ignorant to understand. Nuances about cultural distinctions between these immigrants (returned to their homeland on the collapse of the USSR) and Greeks meant nothing to me. Both groups appear homophobic, and there's one powerful scene describing the barbaric treatment dealt out to gay people in Russia.

    The film was muddled, leaving me dissatisfied and confused about its message. Maybe I'd have been more impressed if I hadn't just seen Mandragora, a Polish film covering similar themes with far greater impact. Rent that one instead.

      • A customer from Glasgow, Scotland
      • Posted 01 Sep 2004 20:03

  • Most recent members' review of From The Edge Of The City

    View all
  • 2 out of 2 people found this review helpful

    Rated - 3 stars

    Rewarding

    Beautifully shot, with less than subtle narrative interventions which unexpectedly punctuate the narrative, this is a familiar tale of angst and teenage trauma, in a less than familiar location.

    Worth viewing, if only for the fine, naive, acting of the lead actor.

      • WillCam from Cambridgeshire
      • Posted 16 Apr 2005 02:57

  • More like this

    View all
    Showing 1 to 4 of 20

    loading

Find cinemas


Rating breakdown

918 Member ratings
  • 100
27
  • 90
22
  • 80
42
  • 70
83
  • 60
142
  • 50
142
  • 40
171
  • 30
119
  • 20
115
  • 10
55

Related user collection

Buy from the LOVEFiLM shop

    • From The Edge Of The City

    • From The Edge Of The City
    • DVD: £6.93
      Free Delivery
    • RRP £16.79 (you save: 59%)
      • A powerful, raw film about a group of outcast teenagers living in Menidi, a predominately Greek-Russian suburb near Athens, Greece. Filmed with a pseudo-documentary style, the actors gathered ...