Happy Birthday

n a short distance from the demonstrations taking place in the centre of Athens, Margarita (14 years old) is weighing a bitter orange in her hand and getting ready to throw it to the riot police bus, parked a few meters in front of her. Inside the bus, George, Margarita’s father, breaths in, in order to blow out the candles on his birthday cake. He is sitting in the middle of the rest of his squad, they are all dressed in riot gear and they are singing ‘Happy birthday’. A petrol bomb beats Margarita to it and crashes on the side of the bus covering it in flames. George and his squad, grab helmets and riot shields and run out of the bus. For a brief moment George recognizes Margarita in the crowds, but he cannot leave his post and he ends up losing her in the tear gas.
That night George, and his wife Sonia decide that father and daughter should go to the family country home for a few days, in the belief that no matter what happens there, it cannot be worse than what will happen if they stay in the city.
At their country house, George recalls memories of past summer holidays hoping to bridge the gap between them, but Margarita will not soften her antagonistic stand. Konstantinos, her boyfriend comes up from the city to rescue her. But when her father and her boyfriend get on so well, even though to start with she is annoyed, for a moment she believes things might get better. But not for long. She is abruptly reminded of her father’s other life as a policeman, and when Konstantinos realizes that her father is a policeman, he leaves and refuses to take her with him.
Margarita now turns on her father and everything she believes he represents. George retaliates and goes as far as to have Margarita locked up in the small holding cell of the local police station. He intends this to be a lesson to her, but instead he is the one who learns something about himself, as he witnesses through Margarita’s eyes a horrible scene of police violence against two other inmates.
He gets his daughter out of there. She tries to run away, but George will not let her drive alone in the night. They fight. She slams the car door on his head, knocking him unconscious, but she cannot leave him. She drives him to the hospital and while she waits for the doctor to treat him she puts on her old roller-skates and skates across the hospital car park, humming the words to an old disco hit her father loves.

• Thessaloniki IFF
• Sao Paulo IFF
• Palm Springs IFF
• Seattle IFF
• Jounieh IFF
• European Union FF in Gene Siskel Film Centre, USA
• Griechische Filmtage Nürnberg
• Hellas Filmbox Berlin