Small Crime

von Christos Georgiou

Leonidas, a young police officer one has moved to a small island dreams to uncover the real crime in the city.

Germany / Cyprus /Greek 2008, 85 min.

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In this surprising romantic comedy, young Leonidas, a recent graduate of the police academy, is frustrated by his assignment to a remote island in the Aegean. Despite a stunning landscape, he yearns to solve important crimes in the big city. Instead, his energy is wasted on traffic stops and nude tourists. The biggest event of his day, like everyone else, is watching the morning TV show hosted by the beautiful Angeliki, the island’s most famous former inhabitant.

When local drunk Zacharias is found dead at the bottom of the cliff, Leonidas seizes the opportunity. His chief assumes Zacharias was drunk, as usual, and fell, but Leonidas mounts an investigation. With fine visual comedy, our vigilant young cop putters about on a tiny scooter looking for clues. His investigation leads him to Angeliki, who has mysteriously returned. As the earnest rookie interviews the islanders, each character—in a nod to Hitchcock’s The Trouble with Harry—has a different version of Zacharias’s demise. Meanwhile, Leonidas falls in love. He becomes part of the island and, by doing so, solves the mystery of Zacharias’s death.

Small Crime grew directly from filmmaker Christos Georgiou’s love of the Greek islands, their rugged landscape and micro-communities, and he developed the story with anecdotes, events and characters from his own visits. Shot entirely on Thirrassia, its local people, livestock, food and customs, just as they are, make their way into the film. The result is a charming story with an undeniable authenticity.