Valse Sentimentale

Constantina Voulgaris’s first feature film is a delightful anomaly in contemporary cinema, sort of like a Cat Power song. Raw, earnest, melancholy, awkward in parts, razor sharp in others, it's lyrical, yet with an undercutting touch of offbeat humor. And more than anything it's unapologetically a girl's bedroom song, an utterly sincere home movie. Made with the ever-generous currency of a cast and crew of friends, and the ample downtime that Greek summer-in-the-city affords, when everybody else is sunning and hooking up out in the islands, it's a film about two exiles -- in Athens, in summer, in love. A sentimental dance between a girl and a boy who could be stuck in downtown any-ville, yearning to be with each other but too cool to dare, too chicken to admit it, too clumsy not to step on each other's Doc Martens, and too damn sentimental not to surrender, in the end, to that old-fashioned thing called love.

Directed by Constantina Voulgari, Valse Sentimentale leans on a strong ensemble — Thanos Samaras, Loukia Michalopoulou, Andreas Kontopoulos — to carry a story that balances spectacle with character.

The film landed with audiences for its craft and performances, and remains one of the most talked-about drama titles of 2008.