Фильм «Спавшая вена» с участием австралийского грека отобран Грецией на «Оскар»,

Yannis Economides’s ‘Broken Vein’ (Σπασμένη Φλέβα) has been selected as Greece’s official submission for the Best International Feature Film Oscar at the 99th Academy Awards — and one of its co-writers has deep ties to Melbourne’s Greek community. Vangelis Mourikis’s journey has taken him from community theatre stages in Melbourne to Oscar contention in Hollywood, and his story carries a special chapter directly tied to Australia and the Greek community here. Today, his name sits at the centre of one of the biggest moments in Greek cinema. Mourikis a leading actor also co-wrote the screenplay for Broken Vein, alongside director Yannis Economides. That gives the Australian Greek community an extra reason to follow the film’s journey to Hollywood closely. The film Broken Vein tells the story of Thomas Alexopoulos, a middle-aged businessman whose life is spiralling towards ruin. When his conflict with a loan shark takes a dangerous turn, he’s forced into a desperate race against time to find money and save his home. The pressure builds, the clock runs down, and the protagonist is pushed into a situation Greece’s Oscar nomination committee described as echoing patterns from ancient tragedy. The Culture Ministry’s committee praised the 127-minute, 2025 film as narratively, artistically and technically accomplished, noting that it reworks motifs of ancient tragedy into a form accessible to international audiences, blending universal themes with a contemporary Greek setting. Written by Economides and Mourikis, the film stars Vassilis Bisbikis, Maria Kehayioglou and Betty Arvaniti. Its selection as Greece’s entry marks only the first stage of the Oscars process, with further rounds of Academy selection still to come. An Australian chapter For Vangelis Mourikis, this moment carries an extra layer of meaning. Before the major film collaborations and accolades in Greece, he was a young Greek man who lived, studied and worked in Australia. Mourikis spent around five years in the country. He studied at La Trobe University while also getting into acting and taking his first professional steps. Australia wasn’t just a stopover in his life — it was an important school for him, both personally and artistically. It’s where he took his first professional steps in film, while also getting involved in community theatre and having direct contact with Melbourne’s Greek community. His connection to the city didn’t end when he returned to Greece. Years later, Melbourne found its way back into the centre of his film career, this time through Alkinos Tsilimidis’s film The Taverna. The black comedy, starring Mourikis himself, unfolds almost entirely inside a Greek restaurant in Melbourne over the course of a single night. The film premiered at the Greek Film Festival in Melbourne and Sydney in October 2019. Its Australian cinema release was originally set for 2020 but was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, before finally reaching Australian screens on 2 July 2020. ‘The Taverna’ holds particular significance for the Greek community. Mourikis, a man who came to know the lives of Melbourne’s Greeks up close, returned to that world on screen to headline a story set inside one of the most iconic spaces of the Greek diaspora: the Greek taverna. A family bond with Melbourne His bond with Melbourne also runs deep on a family level. Vangelis Mourikis is the nephew of the late Christos Mourikis, a journalist and shareholder of Neos Kosmos, who also served as president of the Greek Community of Melbourne. So behind today’s Oscar campaign lies a story that touches the Greek community here directly. A man who lived among Melbourne’s Greeks, studied here, came up through community theatre, and later returned to the city through film, now stands behind the Greek film with its sights set on Hollywood. Broken Vein is now the next big step on that journey.