The Curse Remains: The Haunted Mood of Exile(s)
From the 2026 Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, Turkish film critic Ruggero Calich considers the winner of the FIPRESCI Award for the Greek Competition. Exile(s), Tales From an Island raises issues about the troubled history of Imbros.
The curse seems to be everywhere!
In Yorgos Iliopoulos’s Exile(s), Tales From an Island, dramatic effects of sinister and clumsy social engineering are clearly visible not only in the bleak circumstances of the natives of Imbros but also in the meager, almost miserable conditions of the newcomers. Greece and Turkey, both unwilling to act according to the Treaty of Lausanne from over 100 years ago, apparently almost succeeded in eradicating the tenacious autochthones but not in eliminating the curse that haunts the new inhabitants of the island.
Expressing himself proudly with the noteworthy phrase “I prefer to say that I’m from İmroz,” a young Kurdish man clearly rejects the name Gökçeada, given to the Aegean island by the Turkish state at the beginning of the ’70s. Like many of the Kurds who were not able to live on their lands and moved to the haunted island, the handsome young man feels closer to the native Greeks, once upon a time a pronounced majority of the local population. The documentary has a wider perspective compared to previous films which mostly dealt with the gloomy state of the indigenous people.
Inhabitants of whole villages were moved by the Turkish state to the island from various corners of Turkey, and also from Bulgaria, to transform the social fabric; but the outcome seems to be really gloomy for everybody.
The young Greek director Yorgos Iliopoulos adopts an objective approach as far as possible. The camera is affectionate but also maintains a certain distance; the result is that various characters and especially the children are willing to express themselves sincerely. But the atmosphere as a whole is dark, like being suspended in a hypnotic condition, clearly unable to interpret the reasons behind it.
Abandoned houses, ruined old buildings, dilapidated roads; a desolate scenery, almost a wasteland.
Lonely characters, displaced souls; hostages of a harsh political fait accompli.
Sad glimpses of the heavy past and vague predictions of a not-so-promising future.
Iliopoulos slowly delivers a sophisticated résumé of the Turkish Northern Aegean island, victim of its strategic position close to the Dardanelles Strait.
The multi-award-winning director welcomes various points of view but also insists on characters and situations that nonchalantly deliver black humor.
The “Imvros” dialect of Greek meets the antique “Pontus” version of the same language; dynamic Kurdish songs create almost an antithesis of the ponderous classical Turkish music. Some very old stone buildings still resist the destructive effects of dark times; newly built ones constitute an obvious proof of the poorly improvised public planning.
Paranoia, indignation, and hate are in a continuous clash with tolerance, submissiveness, and superficiality.
Iliopoulos makes us also feel the effects of the aggressive tourism barbarically invading some natural spots of the island. But on the whole he pushes the spectator to a pensive state where he can absorb part of the wretched reality; nevertheless, he surely encourages us to learn more about the deeply sad story of the island and possibly take action.
Ruggero Calich
© FIPRESCI 2026