Our Story

The Foreigner is a short film about a tiny Greek village in danger of losing its official status as a registered town unless it miraculously gets its population to boom- and fast. When a foreigner stumbles into the isolated village one day, the mayor, Kostas, takes it upon himself to rally the townspeople to try and convince the man to stay.  Set amidst the backdrop of the current Greek economic crisis, The Foreigner explores themes of national identity, pain loss, and friendship- all through a comedic lens.

The film is written and directed by Alethea C. Avramis and the project will serve as her thesis film from the MFA Directing program at UCLA's film school.  Alethea is a second-generation Greek-American from southern California (her father hails from Koroni, Peloponessos) who grew up traveling to Greece throughout her childhood.  One of her professional goals is to eventually have a production company based in LA and Athens, and this will be her first step towards establishing a presence in Greece with her work.  She also thinks it's very important to employ Greek talent (actors and crew) to work on the film, especially in a time of such financial strain in Greece.

We plan to shoot the film in the last two weeks of September, 2011 in the Mani region of Greece.

For more information about Alethea and her work, you can visit her other film's websites: www.thelastwidow.com (documentary shot in Greece about Kalavryta) and www.awayfromtheranchfilm.com (her last short film which is currently on the international film festival circuit).

What We Need & What You Get

The costs associated for this film are broken down into three parts: pre-production, production, and post-production.  For pre-production our money will go towards car rentals, gas, office supplies, location scouting and casting costs.  For production, our money will go towards location fees, crew salaries, equipment rentals, food, transportation and accommodation costs, and cast fees.  For post-production, our money will go towards paying an editor and composer, music rights, color correction costs, festival submission fees, and DVD duplications of the final completed film. 
The project has already received a number of grants from UCLA, including the Edie and Lew Wasserman Award and the Frederico de Laurentiis Memorial Award.  Shooting a movie is very expensive, and even with these generous grants we still have not met even a third of our budget!

By contributing to this campaign, you will help a young filmmaker accomplish her goals of receiving her MFA from one of the most prestigious film schools in the world.  In addition, you will be supporting a Greek-American in the arts who wants to tell stories in Greece, and employ Greek film talent during this time of financial crisis in Greece.

**This campaign has entered into a fiscal sponsorship agreement with 501(c)3 Fractured Atlas, so your contributions are tax-deductible!  Email us for more info.

Other Ways You Can Help

You can help our campaign by sharing the project with your family and friends!  If you share this with 10 people, and they share it with 10 more, we can get the word out to literally THOUSANDS of people!  The more people that know about the film the more successful it will be.  You can also help us with in-kind donations.  If you have a connection with an airline or with hotels in Athens or anywhere in Greece, we need your help too!  We are looking for companies or individuals who can assist us with securing airplane tickets from LA to Athens and for accommodations for cast and crew in hotels in Athens.  This will greatly offset our costs needed to transport and house our cast and crew.

If you would like to see a formal prospectus for the film, please contact us!