DRAMA | 17' | 2K | 1.85:1 | Color | ©️2024
Memory is our only true wealth. Andreas learns this the hard way, as his father who is suffering from Alzheimer's cannot recognize him anymore.
In his attempt to help his father remember, Andreas loses track of the time following the path carved by footprints of memory.
The film
“The River Runs Through the Village” is a short film by Xenophon Nikolakopoulos. It narrates the story of Andreas, a man approaching 40 whose father, suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, no longer recognizes him. In an effort to help him remember, Andreas revisits old family memories.
As Andreas watches old family videotapes, he recalls a childhood game he played with his father. They would throw dry twigs into the river and watch their path as they were carried away by the current, declaring the winner the one whose twig traveled the farthest.
The game is about the random movement in the river but also symbolizing on a second level the very movement of the lives of the two protagonists as they sometimes converge and sometimes diverge, following the current of time.
This metaphor serves as a key to deciphering the film's central thematic core, which explores the allegorical relationship between time and memory, concluding that our memories seem to be our only true wealth.
