Eden is West

What is it like to survive as an illegal entrant in Europe? In 'Eden is West' we follow illegal immigrant Elias on his journey to Paris. Although the title points in another direction 'Eden is West' is a comic road movie. Elias has to overcome many obstacles to make it to Paris. To start with, the ship carrying refugees is abandoned by its crew in the Egeic Sea. Elias jumps into the water with a few others and tries to swim to the shore. He washes up on the nudist beach of the luxury ‘Eden’ resort. Is this Elias' paradise or a decadent civilization on the way down? Elias pretends to be an employee of the resort and as such, he gets to know the luxury tourism industry by trial and error. The resort, however, turns out to be just an intermediate station on Elias' journey to Paris.
In 1951, Greek film maker Costa-Gavras went to Paris to study, and there he revealed himself as a famous director, of 'Z', 'State of Siege', 'Missing', 'Music Box' and 'Amen', to name but a few. In 2004 the festival dedicated a retrospective to his work.