DN329: Politics & Film Noir Combine in Alexis Alexiou’s Thriller ‘Wednesday 04:45’

In Greek Director Alexis Alexiou’s crime thriller Wednesday 04:45, a small-time jazz nightclub owner battles the clock in his attempts to salvage his near bankrupt business from the Athenian underworld as the city and the country go up in austerity kindled flames. Alexiou joined us at the London Film Festival to discuss how he went about creating a lyrical, surreal quality for Wednesday 04:45 and why in his opinion good film noir is actually political in nature.

Wednesday 04:45 (2015)

Stelios is the owner of a Jazz Club in Athens. A few years ago, through the help of his former associate Vassos, Stelios received a business loan from the Romanian in order to renovate his club. In 2010, the recession finds Stelios on the brink of bankruptcy unable to repay the loan. The Romanian meets with Stelios and gives him one day to come up with a solution. In a vortex of adultery, drug abuse, violence, guilt and self-deceit, Stelios has a few hours left to save his club, salvage his crumbling marriage, battle the mafia loan-sharks, baptize his employee’s kid and show up at school to receive his son’s report card as a responsible parent.

I don’t know what exactly is the ‘Greek Weird Wave’? I’m not sure I can define it because I guess making films in Greece is weird in itself.