Altı bölümden oluşan “Sinemayı Sanat Yapanlar” sinemanın 100. kuruluş yılında, Türk Sineması’nın kurmacada anlatım dilini oluşturan altı yönetmen (Metin ERKSAN, Atıf YILMAZ, Memduh ÜN, Osman SEDEN, Halit REFİĞ ve Lütfi AKAD) ile ilgili yapılan biyografik bir belgesel çalışmadır.

It is 1936 in Greece, shortly before the Metaxas' dictatorship. A former drug trafficker and police informer, Sofianos, is in prison because of the assassination of a trade unionist during a rally. A conservative politician, Kriezis, with whom Sofianos had a homosexual relationship, visits him in prison. Using a smuggled gun Sofianos manages to take him hostage in his cell and blackmails the police in order to be released. The government is at a dead end and the country finds itself in a crisis. If they free Kriezis, they will lose the support of the democrats, if they don't, they will lose the support of the conservatives. Being incapable of dealing with the situation, the government decide to kill Sofianos. First, they attempt clumsily to poison him and then they hire a sniper to shoot him.[/center]

Alexandre, a TV reporter, is working for a few days in a border town, where a lot of refugees from Albania, Turkey and Kurdistan are packed in. Among them, he notices an old man and thinks he his an important greek politician who disappeared misteriously a few years ago. Back in Athens, he asks this politician's former wife to come and identify him. A slow and dry meditation about inhumanity of borders.

A group of traveling players peregrinates through Greece attempting to perform the popular erotic drama Golfo The Shepherdess. In a first level the film focuses on the historical events between 1939 and 1952 as they are experienced by the traveling players and as they affect the villages which they visit: The last year of Metaxas' fascist dictatorship, the war against the Italians, the Nazi occupation, the liberation, the civil war between left and right wingers, the British and American interventionism in the Greek politics. In a second level the characters live their own drama of jealousy and betrayal, with its roots in the ancient myth of the House of Atreus. Agamemnon, a Greek refugee from Minor Asia, goes to war against the Italians in 1940, joins the resistance against the Germans, and is executed by them after being betrayed by Clytemnestra and Aegisthos. Aegisthos, Clytemnestra's lover, is an informer and collaborator working with the German occupiers. Orestes, son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, fights on the side of the leftists, avenges his father's death by killing his mother and Aegisthos. He is arrested in 1949 for his guerrilla activities and is executed in prison in 1951. Electra, his sister, helps the leftists and aids her brother in avenging the treachery of their mother and Aegisthos. After the death of Orestes she continues the work of the troupe and her relationship with Pylades. Chrysotheme, Electra's younger sister, collaborates with the Germans, prostitutes herself during the occupation, sides with the British during liberation, and later marries an American. Pylades, close friend of Orestes, is a Communist who is exiled by the Metaxas regime, joins the guerrillas and is arrested and exiled again. Finally he is forced to sign a written denunciation of the left after torture by the right wing and he is released from prison in 1950.

This film portrays multiple reconstructions of a domestic crime in a poverty stricken and dying part of rural post war Greece. For the director, portraying the rock strewn environment of a community in decline is a key message, giving us beautiful if somewhat depressing and repetitive images. This is a setting for the crime and subsequent investigation, which is of limited interest. This true story is not an unusual one in life or films/ literature and the multiple reconstructions, very slow pace and banal setting further rob it of dramatic tension. The reconstructions specifically lead to repetition and perhaps some confusion. Characterisation and scenes are well handled, though again tending to follow expected patterns, perhaps precisely because it is based on court transcripts. Overall, critically acclaimed and visually stunning, but you may find it seems rather longer than it actually is.

This film, which is basically the longest narrative film ever made, is a 15-1/2 hour episodic exploration of the character of Franz Biberkopf, "hero" of Alfred Döblin's acclaimed novel, as well as the Alexanderplatz area of Berlin that he inhabits.