By Hector Alejandro Morales, Film Industry Watch contributor and Greek industry insider.
The latest film from Vasilis Kekatos was funded with 488.596,99 € from the Cash Back Financing initiative in Greece (EKOME) and an additional 235.000 € from the Greek Film Center (GFC). All told, that’s 723.596,99 € in public funding — taxpayer money. Public funds. Yours and mine — flushed.
The total budget of the film Our Wild Days was 1.221.492,49 €, according to public records.
Kekatos allegedly helped orchestrate one of the boldest acts of state-funded artistic nepotism this side of the Parthenon. Cross-paneling, they called it — a cozy little club where evaluators approved grants for each other’s films while locking the doors on real, outside talent. But the generous support of public funds did not help Vasilis Kekatos. Our Wild Days has officially bombed at the Greek box office. Distributed by Cinobo, with 6,094 tickets sold across 25 cinemas in its first five days, it made about as much noise as a paperclip falling in a hurricane.
The film’s producer’s gross — if any? A glorious 14.016 € — before subtracting ads, DCPs, and whatever was spent printing posters no one looked at. That means the producers may have walked away with the financial equivalent of a good brunch in Mykonos. The film was produced by Eleni Kossyfidou.
So if you’re wondering what Greek cinema looks like in the age of crony culture and creative bankruptcy, look no further. It’s screening now. In 25 empty theaters.
Critics Raise Concerns Over Director’s Style and Storytelling Weaknesses
The director’s latest film has drawn notable criticism from several film critics for its narrative shortcomings and stylistic indulgences. Christos Mitsis of Athinorama highlights the film’s early momentum but criticizes its descent into repetitive, loosely connected vignettes that lack a cohesive narrative structure. He notes that dramatic turns are often weighed down by an unnecessary poetic pretension, leaving the film emotionally thin.
Greek outlet in.gr echoes this sentiment, pointing to the underdeveloped motivations behind the characters’ rebellious actions, suggesting that the script needed more refinement to fully flesh out its themes. News247 goes further, calling out “script inconsistency” and a lack of clear direction, noting that while the film gestures toward social commentary, it ultimately “loses its aim,” with characters remaining faint sketches rather than fully realized individuals.
Newsbomb.gr critiques the film’s preference for fantasy over realism, describing it as “a love letter to coming of age” that lacks grounding in lived experience, while Flix.gr labels it “a fairy tale for kids who don’t want to grow up,” with ghost-like protagonists who serve more as symbols than believable human beings.
SOURCES:
https://freecinema.gr/greek-box-office-how-to-train-your-dragon-flies-low/
https://www.athinorama.gr/cinema/3047469/elliniko-box-office-agries-meres-gia-iptamenous-drakous
https://flix.gr/news/berlinale-2025-our-wild-days-vasilis-kekatos.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Wildest_Days
https://flix.gr/reviews/berlinale-panorama-film-review.html
https://www.newsbomb.gr/media/kinimatografos
https://www.news247.gr/o-ko/sinema
Related Posts
3 Comments
-
Bobby Van de Kerkove
Funny that this site is using a contributor's pseudo saying that everything is true... In this article only : Budget : incredibly wrong. Box office analysis : so wrong (the film has a great admission per copy number, topping even American films, it is considered a big success in Greece) Producer's gross : so wrong too.
-
Film Industry Watch
RESPONSE: Sources for the budget and the critic's reviews are listed in the article. The producer’s gross in Greece is approximately €2.30 per ticket, from which the costs of DCPs and advertising must still be deducted. Furthermore, a substantial portion of the ticket price is retained by third parties: the exhibitor’s share (typically around 50%), the distributor’s commission, VAT, and other fees. It’s important to distinguish between total box office gross and the actual net revenue received by the producer per ticket. In its opening week, VK’s film ranked well behind How to Train Your Dragon and Lilo & Stitch. By the second week, it had dropped to No. 7 at the box office, continuing to trail significantly behind How to Train Your Dragon, Lilo & Stitch, Mission: Impossible, and 28 Days Later. During its second week, the film sold just 5,000 tickets—approximately 20% fewer than in its debut week.
-
Sundance kid
As a film festival insider I can confirm that everything said on this website is true. But it really doesn't matter now, ai is going to destroy the film industry within two years, and all of us will be unemployed.