Smuggling Hendrix

A faded musician sees his plans turned upside down when his beloved dog runs away and crosses the buffer zone that separates the “Greek South” from the “Turkish North”. Can he smuggle him back in?

Nicosia 2016: Cyprus is still recovering from the economic crisis while talks for reuniting the island are back on the table. The life of YIANNIS (early 40s), a Greek-Cypriot faded musician, hasn’t particularly turned out as he envisioned it. His girlfriend left him, he can’t cough up his rent, and his mobster creditors are breathing down his neck. His plan: to leave the island, as soon as possible, with his only loyal friend, his beloved dog JIMI. Everything is arranged and nothing stands in his way, as long as he manages to hold on to his meagre savings stacked away in his old guitar and lay low for four more days.

Yiannis’ plan gets disrupted when Jimi runs away and crosses the buffer zone to the Turkish controlled side of the island. He has no option but to put his personal objections towards crossing to “the Turkish side” aside. However, when he finds Jimi he is confronted with a ludicrous European Law prohibiting the crossing of animals from the Turkish to the Greek side. Yiannis is stuck, pondering on a way to bring his dog back.

The quiet existence of HASSAN (40), a Turkish settler and family man, is interrupted when Yiannis – with his creditors hot on his heels – unexpectedly shows up at his house. Yiannis confesses to Hassan that their meeting was not purely coincidental. Hassan’s house belongs to Yiannis’ parents, who had to flee the property after the Turkish invasion of 1974 and have not been able to return ever since. After a heated discussion, Yiannis claims that Hassan took his house, an accusation that gets Hassan fuming.