I Póli ke i Póli

Nicknamed “the mother of Israel”, the Greek city of Thessaloniki was for centuries home to a large diaspora of Sephardic Jews until the outbreak of the Second World War. In the winter of 1943, the Nazi regime dispatched Eichmann’s deputies to Greece where they quickly and rigorously carried out their programme of ghettoisation and deportation which led to the extermination of more than 90 percent of the city’s Jewish population. THE CITY AND THE CITY aims to reconstruct this dramatic history through six intertwined chapters drawn from the lives and perils of Thessaloniki’s Jewish community. Filmmakers Christos Passalis and Syllas Tzoumerkas, both born in Thessaloniki, have created an enigmatic, multi-character narration. As we wander through a blend of last century and contemporary Thessaloniki, we discover echoes of a lost, multi-cultural Eden and the intense pain that today’s inhabitants have inherited. If embraced, this is a shattering experience. (Berlinale)