Apples (Μila)

Amidst a worldwide pandemic that causes sudden amnesia, middle-aged Aris (Aris Servetalis) finds himself enrolled in a recovery program designed to help unclaimed patients build new identities. Prescribed daily tasks on cassette tapes so he can create new memories and document them on camera, Aris slides back into ordinary life, meeting Anna (Sofia Georgovasili), a woman who is also in recovery. Through images deadpan, strange and surreal, Greek writer-director Christos Nikou posits a beguiling reflection on memory, identity, and loss, exploring how a society might handle an irreversible epidemic through one man’s story of self-discovery. Are we the sum of the images we compile and display of ourselves, or are we something richer, and deeper?

“Christos Nikou’s Apples envisions a pandemic of amnesia, in which people stricken with a mysterious disease suddenly lose all memory of their former lives, right down to their names. For Aris practically the only thing he’s able to recall about himself is that he likes eating apples. His roommate at the neurological hospital to which he’s taken, isn’t so lucky. When asked whether he eats the fruit, the old man responds matter-of-factly, ‘I don’t remember if I like them.’ Unlike most films about amnesia, Apples is less concerned with how people retrieve lost memories or reconnect with their previous sense of self than it is with how a brand new identity is created.” - Slant Magazine