Μάτια από Νύχτα
Matia apo Nichta

Eleftheria, a 40ish woman working in a pastry shop, wants to settle down with long-time lover Chronis, a truck driver. Returning to Athens from a job, Chronis gives a lift to Vallia, a small-town teen who yearns to start a new life in the city. But before long, the mistakes and weaknesses of these three ordinary people collide in a relationship drama that exposes the frailty of human nature.
2003/ Drama/ Road / Rating:R18 / Director: Pericles Hoursoglou

Full Detail:

Chronis: 45 years old, a truck driver. He likes taking off. Traveling alone. Eleftheria: She wants a man to love and who will love her, to have a baby with him. But time is running out. She is almost 40. Vallia: She wants to leave the country town and come to Athens.
Three characters whose paths cross. They are not "in". They are featured in none of the glossy life-style magazines. They don't have a perfect body, they don't make love on the first day they meet someone and more often than not when they are naked they turn off the light.
Weak people who "boil" inside. They love, betray, are betrayed. They want something, they want it bad, but what they really need is something different. Time and love. Their loneliness is what they share in common. But one of them will forget their tiny ego and even if they don't go about it the right way, in the end they will be generous.


"Eyes of Night" Are eyes that ask if someone truly loves them… words written on the top of a truck… a girl in a bar somewhere in the country… "Eyes of Night" are jealousy, betrayal and revenge. "Eyes of Night" are a hug.


Winner - 3 Greek State Film awards at 2003 Thessaloniki International Film Festival
The title is the name of the protagonist's truck

Cast: Vangelio Andreadaki, Yannis Karatzoyannis, Ekavi Douma, Spyros Stavrinidis, Dimitris Mavropoulos, Nikos Karimalis, Marina Boura

Other credits:

Script: Pericles Hoursoglou
Script Analysis: Jan Fleischer
Cinematography: Stamatis Giannoulis
Editing: Dinos Katsouridis
Sets-Costumes: Anastasia Arseni
Music: Akis Daoutis
Songs: FFC
Sound recordist: Nikos Papadimitriou
Sound Mix: Thanassis Arvanitis
Make-up artist: Fani Alexaki
Production coordinators: Costas Kefalas
Assistant Director: Pierros Andrakakos
Producer: Costas Lambropoulos
Production: CL Productions, Greek Film Centre, Pericles Hoursoglou
Co-producers: Hellenic Broadcasting Corp., ERT S.A TONIKON (Dinos Katsourides), ATTIKA S.A. (Pantelis Mitropoulos), Filmnet Y-Grec Productions (Constantinos Moriatis)
Sponsors: ORPHEE BEINOGLOU
Distributor: Prooptiki SA

Awards:

. 44th Thessaloniki Film Festival 2003 - State Cinema Awards
· Third Prize for fiction film
· Best Leading Actress award (Vangelio Andreadaki)
· Best Supporting Actress award (Ekavi Douma)

Pericles Hoursoglou

Born in Athens in 1955, he studied mathematics at Athens University and film at the Stavrakou Film School. He began working as a? assistant director in 1978 at the side of many Greek filmmakers (most notably with Pantelis Voulgaris). From 1982 to the present he has directed documentaries for the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation's channel. In recent years he has worked as a script analyst for the Mediterranean Film Institute and Microfilm. In 2003 for the first time he directed Michel Fais' monolgue "Couples" for the stage with actor 


Filmography:

1980 THE CUFF LINKS, short
1983 TOUCH TYPING, short
1986 STYLE, telefilm, 16mm, 57 mins.
1993 LEFTERIS, 35mm, colour, 105 mins.
1997 THE MAN IN GREY, 35mm, colour, 100mins
2003 EYES OF NIGHT, 35mm, colour, 100mins

Review:

By Derek Elley, Variety
A nicely played relationship drama that finds an involving story in ordinary people's mistakes and weaknesses, "Eyes of Night" stands definite chances as a Euro-cable pickup for discerning auds. Film is the strongest of the three features to date by writer-director Periklis Hoursoglou, best known for "Lefteris" (1993), and is a refreshing example of good, accessible filmmaking focused on middle-aged protags.

Eleftheria (played with a wonderfully mature feyness by Vangelio Andreadaki) is a 40-ish woman who works in a pastry shop and entertains romantic ideas about finally settling down with her longtime lover, Hronis (Yannis Karatzoyannis), a long-distance truck driver. In her spells alone, she's not above consulting a TV astrologer (Spyros Stavrinidis) for guidance.
Returning to Athens from a job, Hronis gives a lift to Vallia (Ekari Douma), a small-town teen who says she wants to visit her cousin in the big city. She's actually not sure exactly where he lives, so Hronis lets her stay at his house in the suburbs.
When Hronis tells Eleftheria about Vallia, the older woman invites the girl round for lunch, still not sure whether the two have slept together. (They haven't, which is one of pic's several uncliched touches.) But when Vallia finds her musician cousin (Nikos Karimalis), and starts peddling coke for him, the fragile friendship between her, Hronis and Eleftheria starts to break down.

Guts of the picture is the relationship between Eleftheria and Hronis, one of trust and hope on the woman's side that eventually requires her to make a huge act of generosity toward the well-intentioned but rather weak Hronis. Neither party is idealized or villainized: That's just how life is, pic seems to say, and sometimes you have to make concessions or be patient.
Casting of Andreadaki and Karatzoyannis in the lead roles is a consistent pleasure, and the former's scenes with Stavrinidis, as the kindly old astrologer, are among the strongest and most affecting. Douma is fine as the ambitious country girl turned city punkette, though her character becomes more of a dramatic convenience in film's mid-section than one in her own right, with a trip to visit her mother in Belgium disturbing the film's tightly knit rhythm.
Smooth tech package is attractive without any special stylization. Title is the name of Hronis' truck.

Web links:

Images of the film at http://www.clproductions.gr/en/feature-eyes_of_night-photos.htm