"Dimitri Vorris's DECEMBER RIOTS arrives like a storm that signals the times are a-changing again and that as a world we're on the cusp between despair and hope."Amos Poe, Filmmaker, Leading figure of the No Wave Cinema Movement, "UNMADE BEDS", "THE FOREIGNER", "SUBWAY RIDERS", "EMPIRE II", "THE GUITARS", "ROCKET GIBRALTAR"
"December Riots is important, timely, and hits it's mark. Acclaimed Greek-born filmmaker Dimitri Vorris has beautifully interwoven fact and fiction, to create a dramatic tale, that is both horrifying and thought-provoking".Christopher Martini, Director-Producer "The Stone Child", "Trooper"
....Police violence. Interpersonal relationships’ violence. A looted country in despair. Seven characters trapped in an arthouse movie theater. A countdown to extinction...Three years before the movement of the “indignados” and OCCUPY WALL STREET there were “December Riots”.
«DECEMBER RIOTS», is a feature length film written, produced and directed by Dimitri Vorris, was in post-production, while a new wave of riots swept Greece on June 29th, 2011. The film's epicenter is the cold-blooded execution of 15 year-old student Alexander Gregoropoulos by two policemen in a downtown Athens café on December 6, 2008. "December Riots," a film about the Gregoropoulos killing, an incident that sparked riots in over seventy cities and twenty-two countries aound the world including the US, is produced, and directed by Greek-born Dimitri Vorris. The filmmaker acquired exclusive access to many never-before-seen court documents and evidence from the trial that followed Gregoropoulos’s killing.
Based on a real incident -the director himself was trapped on December 8, 2008 in a downtown arthouse movie theater during the 2008 riots-the independently financed, claustrophobic thriller, that was filmed entirely on location in Athens, Greece, focuses on a group of seven characters, Europeans and Americans, trapped in an art-house movie theater during the 2008 riots. 23 year-old newcomer British actress Lucy Lemos, Duncan Skinner, Fanis Katechos (“El Greco”), prolific actor Avraam Papadopoulos, popular comedian-director Nikos Giannikas anchor a youthful and talented supporting cast that includes Vivian Ioannou, Aris Athan, Nasos Pappas, Michael Angels, Louise Rheas, Aris Pappas, Maria Floratou, , Kostas Antalopoulos, Christina Mani (narrator).
Additional footage was filmed in late June 2011, while the film was being edited, when violence again erupted in Constitution Square. A new sequence with haunting and shocking images of Greek riots has been added.
“...people have not forgotten about Alexander or his senseless killing.There is still fury and rage that needs to be purged and there are still questions that need to be answered. While one film can’t answer the myriad of questions and dilemmas, ’December Riots’ honors Alexander’s memory and I do hope filmgoers worldwide are going to see through the film a new perspective on the systemic corruption and the looting of Greece. What's happening in Greece, is happening, or is about to happen everywhere else; Greece is just the canary in the mineshaft!."
