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Mignon

A story of moral decay and devaluation told through the perspective of two teenage girls.

synopsis

Anna and Fani, two lively adolescents, visit Mignon, the biggest department store in Athens. The year is 1997, at the pinnacle of Greece’s economic growth, and Christmas is approaching. The girls stroll around the corridors of the store in a cheerful mood, teasing the customers and having fun with each other. At some point, the two girls challenge each other to a “theft game”. They get caught shoplifting at the exit of the store by a security guard and are escorted to a small room at the mezzanine floor. Inside the room, Pantelis, the store manager and L., the store owner, question Anna and Fani about their act and a strange interrogation takes place. Tension in the small room slowly escalates as L. is pushing the limits of interrogation a step further. The two girls realise that the owner has established a mechanism operating on its own bizarre set of rules that involves almost everyone in the store. Anna and Fani will finally be set free after the arrival of Anna’s mother, but at a great cost for all three of them.

Director’statement

When I was 15 years old I had a similar experience, the true dimensions of which took years to settle in. At that age an experience like that frightens and scars you – the guilt associated with having done something illegal overshadows the event. Only years later I realised that an entire network had been set up in the store, where the owners and members of staff exploited their authority, blurring the boundaries between perpetrator and victim. My personal experience unfolds in the film, viewed through the eyes of the two girls and one of the staff members. The movie looks at the dark side of an iconic store that the Greek imaginary still holds as a place of happiness, a symbol of the affluence of the pre-crisis years. My intention is to focus on the relationship and the contrasting dynamics that develop within the space of the store, where shopping in bliss and forceful interrogation are separated by a single partition wall.

TFL PROGRAMME:
ScriptLab 2018
Discover more details here:
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TFL Catalogue 2018

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