His alter ego in the film is Fanis Iakovidis played by George Corraface. He’s a professor of astronomy at a Greek University, but an incident provokes memories of growing up in Constantinople with his grandfather who had a spice shop. There is more to each spice than you would think.

When Fanis and his family are deported from Turkey because they are Greek citizens his grandfather and his young friend Saime are left behind.

In Greece he and his family are seen as foreigners, not Greek at all so Fanis turns to the preparation of food to connect him with the people he loved in his youth and he’s drawn to family members who are sympathetic.

This well-intentioned film is rather turgid unfortunately. It has little sense of dramatic rhythm and every little incident is given a significance that seems disproportionate. No wonder so many of the characters look soulful throughout.

It tries to capture that sense of displacement that director Boulmetis obviously felt, he himself was born in Constantinople but moved to Greece at a young age. Perhaps the material was too close to him because it certainly needed a more rigorous, less weighted approach.

The set includes 2 DVDs, and a small booklet with movie notes and relevant recipes. Includes Greek, English, and Turkish subtitles. The second DVD includes special features such as delete scenes, a documentary about the creation of the movie, biographies, and a picture gallery.

Please Note: This DVD is in PAL format, encoded for use in ALL PAL zones (Zone-free). To view this DVD in the US or Canada you will need a multi-region DVD player or a computer with a DVD player. Greekshops.com is currently offering a multi-region DVD player at the amazing price of 69.95! This DVD player will not only play all zones and DVDs from anywhere in the world, but it also has several other great features which make it a great upgrade of your current DVD player.

Click here to view a video sample in MPEG format (3.38MB)