We are on a remote Mediterranean island. In the north, a giant tower rises above the landscape, home to the world’s richest 1%, who indulge in a perpetual, never-ending party. Day and night, the music pounds, its beat carrying across the island, pulsing in the ears of the locals as if dictating their every movement. They labor to supply The Tower with the island’s finest products: milk, meat, honey and fish extracted from their livestock and waters.
But the tower is insatiable. It demands more, and more, and more, pushing the unwilling locals to the point of draining their animals’ bodies of every possible resource. Soon, the livestock begins to resist: goats refuse to give milk, cows stop eating, bees abandon their hives to swarm into the wild, and fish veer off in erratic migrations.
The islanders, unable to meet the tower’s demands, are left with nothing to give. In this void, humiliation turns to anger, and the slow spiral of rebellion begins.
Visual Reference, Phryctoria, Yorgos Zois, 2025
Yorgos Zois is a filmmaker. His work has been recognized at some of the world’s foremost film festivals — including Cannes, Venice, Berlin, Rotterdam, Telluride, and Clermont-Ferrand — and has earned numerous international awards and distinctions. In Greece, he received the Hellenic Film Academy Award for Best Short Film for Casus Belli, as well as seven awards at the Drama International Short Film Festival, including Best Film, Best Director, and Best Screenplay. His debut feature, Interruption, premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2015 and earned him the Hellenic Film Academy Award for Best New Director. His short film Out of Frame won the European Film Academy Award at the Venice Film Festival in 2012, while he has also served on the official “Lion of the Future” jury at the 74th Venice International Film Festival. His films have been broadcast by major television networks such as CANAL+ and ARTE, and have been selected by the renowned Criterion platform. His second feature, Arcadia, premiered in the official Encounters competition of the 2024 Berlin Film Festival and went on to win the Best Director Award at the Sarajevo Film Festival, among many other international honors. In Greece, Arcadia received the Iris Awards for Best Film, Best Director, and Best Screenplay from the Hellenic Film Academy, and was the only Greek film nominated by the European Film Academy.