Yorgos Lanthimos and his three movies

Yorgos Lanthimos was born on May 27, 1973 in Athens, completed his education at the Greek Film and Television School Stravkos. After his education, he directed many commercials and music videos. In addition, Yorgos Lanthimos prepared the opening ceremony of the 2005 Athens Olympics. His first feature film was the 2005 production Kinetta.

After this film, which was nominated for the other award, he shot the films Dogtooth, Attenberg and Alps. He managed to receive the Special Jury Prize of the Cannes Film Festival with his movie The Lobster that he shot in 2015. After watching it, he started his preparations for the movie named The Favourite for 2017 without slowing down.

Lanthimos’s strict and sterile style seems to stem from a fear of melodrama, and a misunderstanding of acting. They deal with concepts as grandiose as language, love, and revenge. Often times, when watching a Lanthimos film, one can often ask themselves “What is going on?”. And in retrospect, that worked out perfectly, because this is what may have led to the spark of creativity in a young Lanthimos. What we can expect from Yorgos Lanthimos is the unexpected. 

An unconventional love story set in a dystopian near future where single people, according to the rules of the Town, are arrested and transferred to the Hotel.  There they are obliged to find a matching mate in 45 days.  If they fail, they are transformed into an animal of their choosing and released in the woods.  A desperate man escapes from the Hotel to the woods where the Loners live and there he falls in love although it's against the rules.

After the untimely death of 16-year-old Martin's father on the operating table, little by little, a deep and empathetic bond begins to form between him and the respected cardiothoracic surgeon, Dr Steven Murphy. At first, expensive gifts and then an invitation for dinner will soon earn the orphaned teenager the approval of Dr Steven's perfect family, even though right from the start, a vague, yet unnerving feeling overshadows Martin's honest intent. And then, unexpectedly, the idyllic family is smote by a fierce and pitiless punishment, while at the same time, everything will start falling apart as the innocents have to suffer. In the end, as the sins of one burden the entire family, only an unimaginable and unendurable decision that demands a pure sacrifice can purge the soul. But to find catharsis, one must first admit the sin.

In the early 18th century, England is at war with the French. Nevertheless, duck racing and pineapple eating are thriving. A frail Queen Anne occupies the throne, and her close friend, Lady Sarah, governs the country in her stead, while tending to Anne's ill health and mercurial temper. When a new servant, Abigail, arrives, her charm endears her to Sarah. Sarah takes Abigail under her wing, and Abigail sees a chance to return to her aristocratic roots.

 

Hello everyone, I am Ana Nemsadze from Saqartvelo. In this small article I will share my views about why we should apply for the European Solidarity Corps volunteering programs, what is generally volunteering and what experience I have so far.

I would like to begin with why we should apply for ESC projects. Well, for me it is a great opportunity to meet new people, get to know with new cultures. As long as you are never alone, in your organization there always will be a group of volunteers from different countries. During this period, volunteers are becoming more independent individuals, we learn how to control our budget for living, we learn how to be more compationate, forgiving, tolerant, increasing creativity and motivation for new life challenges. This is a time when we will learn how to cope with new culture and new traditions.

If you are already interested to participate, here are some tips how you can do it.
First , you need to register on the portal (https://europa.eu/youth/go-abroad/volunteering/opportunities_en). Be careful while uploading your CV, because it’s very important and don’t forget to fill out all charts given.
When you find suitable projects for you and feel passionate about them, you need to start applying process. You will need motivation letters for each of them and send CV of course. But I would like to give some small tip from my point of view, as long as there are different types of projects, you can start from short term project, so you would be able to apply again for long term projects, if you decide in your future life and your volunteering career will be extended. The advantage of these program is that there is no language barrier, you need to be able to communicate and express yourself. But read carefully description of the project, well for me knowledge of English was important as long as I am doing my volunteering work at school, and I am also very lucky because in our Gimnazium there is a high level of English knowledge among students. After applying you need to find a sending organization, a local from your country. They will help you to prepare all kinds of documents you need.

I would like to say some words about the projects itself. It is a time all about yourself and your creativity. You are fully provided with the services from the beginning all transportation fees ending with your accommodation, communal, food money and pocket money. You are ensured as well, so you will feel safe and secured.

During volunteering you are never alone. You have a huge support system built around you. All volunteers have coordinator, mentor and tutor. They are people who will always be there for you. At your work place you will have mentor and tutor, you will communicate every day and they will help you to integrate easily in new culture. If you are participant of short term project, you will have training, provided from you sending organization, before going to another country about what kind of differences you may face and give you advices how you can cope easily with new culture. If you are participating in long term project, you as a volunteer will have arrival and mid-term training from the national organization. Where all kinds of activities are planned and provided for you.

The last part of your activity is evaluation of your work. It is a conclusion of your volunteering service. You are given a chance to have very valuable document Youth Path, which describes all kind of activities you have implemented in your project, all the competences you have improved or gained. This Document is official form which will be helpful in your future life, while applying for exchange programs, or even in hiring. You are creating a web of communication as well and don’t lose them, because they are a big part of your memory and experience.

Volunteering itself is a perfect way of staying motivated. When you are focused more on giving rather than getting, your motivation grows. Together we make a difference in this world. Our attitudes, believes and ideas creating stronger community together are priceless. Some people only focus on what they can get out of life and relationships. If we come from the position of serving and helping and being more consciously awake to world around us, our mindset can shift from merely receiving to giving. It’s true that “You make a living by what you get. You make a life what you give.”-Winston Churchhill.

These times are challenging for all of us but still we should try to make best out of it.

I would like to welcome all of you in our big family of volunteers.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Ana

 

“If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things”- Albert Einstein

Days of 2020-2021 are itself challenging and we must help ourselves to survive. Always remember to stay positive and self-motivated.

Staying motivated is big task for everybody especially in today’s reality. Let’s first define the motivation. It is what pushes to achieve our goals, feel more fulfilled and improve our overall quality of life. Motivation is one of the three areas of the personal skills that are integral to the concept of emotional intelligence.

For being self-motivated, it’s very important to have personal drive to achieve, commitment to goals, to be initiative, to look to things in optimistic way and stay in reality. Keep these elements in your everyday mind and things might change in a better direction. You must always have something on your “lifetime-plate”. As once Michelangelo said – “The greater danger for most of us isn’t that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.”

Let’s pause here and realize meaning of these words. How big we will think for our future it will always help us to stay motivated to reach them. But we can’t forget the difference of two main activities: goal setting and having dreams for future life. Let’s set a goal which can be achieved and cherish the moment of accomplishment. By doing less and focusing on the things we love, will help us to increase our motivation. It is the way of simplifying the complexity, but having big dreams for future is the way which will help you to have always something on your “Lifetime-plate” to achieve.  

I believe that world has turned its back on us because we stopped cherishing what we have, what we have achieved. We are more focused on getting rather than giving. From my point of view, one of the positive things our volunteering program has as a pattern, is to implement in our selves feeling of giving, helping, which will automatically transform our brains into more creative ways how to spread more and more abundance in community. If you really focus on giving it will be more satisfying and can become a true purpose for a life.

For any type of achievements, we have to stay committed. How funny it can sound, smallest shifts create the biggest results. For example, creating more positive attitude, starting new positive habits can boost our motivation. When we are doing it constantly, our brain wires new pathways that help us create incremental improvements.

My wish for every human being is to have more positive attitude and a happy life.

 

                                         

                 

               Syndromes named after places

1. Stockholm

Probably the most famous syndrome is Stockholm syndrome. It’s about situation when a kidnapped person begins to start feeling empathy or love for their victims. The most famous example for Stockholm is syndrome is “Beauty and the Beast”.

 

2. Paris

Paris syndrome is that when somebody visits to Paris for the first time and they think that they will live very special feeling and everybody is romantic and beloved in Paris but when they face that they are living normal life, it makes them to be depressed. Mostly Japanese people can be affected from this situation.

3. Jerusalem

Jerusalem syndrome is a religious version of Paris syndrome. Most of people effect from this religious atmosphere and think that they are Christ or another religious person.

4. Sarajevo

I think this is the saddest syndrome. Sarajevo syndrome is a post-traumatic stress disorder particular to people who survived the bloody wars in Yugoslavia. People have fear about those awful days can come back and they live stress of it.

  

5. London

The opposite of Stockholm syndrome is London syndrome. It is about when a kidnapper starts feeling special feelings for their hostages. You can see a lot of movies about this syndrome. As well as, you can call it Lima syndrome, too because it is totally same.

6. Helsinki

Helsinki syndrome is related to official meetings where people thinks together but they make bad and poor decisions based upon baseless idealism.

7. Florence

Also known as Stendhal syndrome, Florence syndrome is when you see amazing art works, your body goes to react it differently. And it can touch you and even it can end up with fainting.