Our planet is a paradise that bears fruit, produces products and raw materials to sustain the nearly 8 billion people who live on it. If man behaved wisely and respectfully to mother earth, she could easily satisfy the needs of all creatures, what no planet and no place can satisfy is the greed of human kind.
The Mega series “The Shipwreck” is about one of the biggest maritime tragedies in the Greek seas, due to the greed of the shipowners, it happened in the early morning hours of December 8, 1966, near the rocky island of Falconera (23 nm northwest of of the island of Milos), when the passenger-car ferry “Heraklion”, running the Chania-Piraeus route, sank, due to severe bad weather, cargo displacement and the wrongful handling of the difficult situation by the owner company, resulting in their death 224 people.
The ship “Heraklion” started its journey from Chania to Piraeus, “under the responsibility of the master”. The master, who was aware of the weather conditions he had to deal with, did not ensure that the trucks in the hold were securely lashed down. The ship sank in the sea area of ”Falkonera”, in the middle of a strong sea. It is one of the biggest maritime tragedies with over 250 dead. No one knows the exact number of dead, since even to this day only the rescued (47) and the bodies (25) found have been counted. The survivors were only men. None of the women on board were rescued. Not even a child.
But the author, for the sake of fiction, caused a woman and a child to be saved. Peace and Love. And then the tangle of the life of this woman and the child unravels.
So we are in 1966, a few days before the fateful event. Our heroes from different parts of Megalonisos are preparing for the journey. In Kythera, Irini and Apostolos, perfumers, have bottled their love in small bottles and have received an invitation from Paris to participate in a major competition which will open wide their paths to success. Irene’s father manages to convince Captain Steli to take them to Chania to take the “Phoenix” to reach Piraeus and from there fly to Paris and their dream. Lina in a parallel story has arrived in Chania to see her family.
When her hidden secret that she intends to become an actress is revealed, her father is furious and tries hard to get her married. Lina manages to escape her father’s intentions and sneaks into the fateful ship in order to return to Athens and continue on her way. Makis, a young photographer, also comes to Chania, who crosses paths with Lina and who will help his friend steal the girl he loves and return to Piraeus. The son of the pope after a murder that neither God nor the devil wanted nor himself, tries to escape through the “Phoenix” away from remorse, arrest and legal consequences. On the ship itself now the Master of the ship takes leave. His replacement is a bit sleazy and very obedient to the orders of the ship-owning company. The ship’s engineer knows the ship’s weaknesses and a delayed fruit truck that breaks into the ship and is not secured, combined with the raging weather outside create an explosive mixture that drives the ship with mathematical precision to the bottom of the raging sea.
The story has at its core, this famous shipwreck of the ferry “Heraklion”, which sunk off the rocky island of Falconera and the people who lost their lives on this fateful journey.
But the few who survive, they too become shipwrecks in the soul. The guilt of surviving while others lost their lives, the images they saw, the screams they heard, the insecurity and fear, accompany them forever and lead them to wrong decisions in their lives. Once a shipwreck, forever a shipwreck, as the struggle for survival becomes a habit of life.
The main characters of the series
Hippocrates Panopoulos and Yiannis Stankoglou
The conscientious, daring and charming Coast Guard officer who will go to great lengths to help the people who were drowning on that fateful night. Fighting all odds he will save several people and Irene from destruction. Cruel events and rescue will bring the dynamic Coast Guard and Peace together.
Irini Kasimati and Anastasia Pantousi
Irini enters the ship with her beloved Apostolos and holding tightly in her hand a bag that contained the precious perfumes that the two of them had created and that would lead the beautiful couple to Paris and to their collaboration with a famous perfumery company. The realization of the dream of Peace is just one bad weather and several irresponsible decisions of those responsible for the wreck.
Apostolos Kasimatis and George Chrysostomou
In Kythira, Apostolos lives a quiet life together with his beautiful Irene, until the dream comes to travel to Paris, in collaboration with a large perfumery company and to success. Apostolos firmly believes in the success of his perfume, they leave with Irini on the fateful ship to Piraeus to travel by air from Athens to Paris, but “but it is the will of men, but not of God”.
Leonidas Kakouris is Captain Stelis
Accompanying the daughter to his hatch on the “Phoenix”, he immediately realized the mistakes made in loading the ship. He lost his daughter in the wreck and will try with all his might to uncover the culprits and bring to light their criminal wrongdoings.
Michalis Argyrakis and Thanos Lekkas
A sailor who tried with all his might to change the decisions of those responsible for the trip and then to rescue those he could in the icy waters of Myrtou. With the help of a journalist, he tried to reveal the circumstances of the wreck and the responsibilities of those responsible.
Miltiadis Pantelidis the Gerasimos Skiadaresis
A lawyer who tries in every way to cover up the criminal wreck and to extract oil from the ship-owning company and those responsible. Corrupt and unscrupulous, he will approach witnesses, try to buy testimony and use any means to exonerate his bosses and those in charge.
Giorgis Kanellakis or Giorgos Christodoulou
A persistent journalist who will try to uncover the loopholes and omissions that led the ship to doom. He himself has his own secrets that are tied to the sunken “Phoenix”. He will methodically and systematically try to bring the survivors in contact and analyze their testimonies to bring the truth to light.
The shipwreck is based on the book of the same name by Spyros Petroulakis, the screenplay was written by Giorgos Kokuvas and directed by Yiannis Charitidis and the cinematography by Nikolas Karanikolas & Thomas Varvias. Starring: Yannis Stankoglou, Anastasia Pantousi, Gerasimos Skiadaresis, Leonidas Kakouris, George Chrysostomou, Hector Liatsos, Michael Tabakakis, Dimitris Kapouranis, Athena Roditou, Amalia Kavalis, George Christodoulou, etc. In the role of Lamprini, Giota Festa.
Love is the beginning of everything. The very much in love couple (played by Giorgos Chrysostomou and Anastasia Pantousi), live their love in the world of perfumes and their dreams, the good and bad heroes cross paths and slowly, slowly develop all the stereotypes and script clichés that have been consolidated in the daily serials. The good and conscientious on the one hand and the bad, the adventurers and the advantaged on the other, who in the face of financial gain do not consider human needs or even human lives. And we come to the climax of the thing which is the wreck, the sinking of the ship, for which an international team with enormous experience in filming at sea was brought in.
There awaits us a scene far inferior to any equivalent in any, even small, foreign production we have attended. The storm that swallowed a whole ship is a light wave, people are minimal in the footage, the catastrophic event looks like a small naval accident that in the end, with some small hacks and a few minor injuries, everyone will make it clear. Some parts of the shipwreck sequence, instead of being tragic, seem comical.
The captain hanging on the wheel and the dialogues while the ship is sinking are some of them. The ship is lost in the depths of the Aegean, some fifty nomads are saved and all the scenario clichés of the world begin to develop on land. The coincidences would be impressive if they weren’t bordering on the ridiculous. The lives of all those who were saved, by diabolical coincidence, intersect either mainly for romantic reasons, or because of financial transactions, or because fate decided things that way.
Sometimes it seems that television is the triumph of the machine over man. One wonders, these television programs offered by Greek television, which do not have the purpose of serious entertainment, nor much relation to the cinematographic art but only have the purpose of being consumed, unchewed, like fast food and to move on to the next product, how much can can the consumer afford them?
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