Animal

An all-inclusive resort on a Greek island, the Hotel Mirage, getting ready for high season. A small troupe of entertainers rehearse the shows that will keep the tourists happy: dance routines, karaoke nights, foam parties, games by the pool. Kalia is the oldest of them, the one who has done this the longest and keeps the whole programme running. She is funny, tough and tireless, and she makes it look like fun. But as the summer goes on, the work gets harder, the nights get longer, and the smile starts to cost more than she has.

Sofia Exarchou, who made Park, films the other side of the Greek tourist postcard: the cheap staff rooms, the hangovers, the bodies pushed to exhaustion so that strangers can have a good holiday. The shows are filmed with real energy, loud and garish and strangely beautiful, and then the camera stays when the music stops. Dimitra Vlagopoulou is extraordinary as Kalia, a woman who has given everything to performing happiness and is slowly running out. She won Best Actress at Locarno, and the film won the Golden Alexander at Thessaloniki.

It is a film about work, about getting older in a job made for the young, and about a whole economy built on selling a dream of summer. It doesn't offer comfort, and some scenes are hard to watch. But it is vivid, physical and painfully honest. One of the best Greek films of recent years, and a perfect companion to Suntan.