A Blast

Maria is speeding along a highway somewhere in Greece in her thundering SUV. She is alone. Behind her, an island in flames and a suitcase full of money. In front of her, the hopeless expanse of the road. Nothing can stop her wild, accelerating drive. Only yesterday she was a caring mother, loving wife and responsible daughter. But today she has had enough: she has made the decision to banish everything she has fought for from her life. Maria's dramatic story, her journey to breaking free from her previous life, is told through fragments of the present, which are closely interwoven with her past and at the same time paint a dazzling and also very disturbing picture of contemporary Greece. Maria's life is determined by the permanent dominance of her family. Behind this lies a functionalized and soulless sexuality, lifelong lies and financial debts that can only be exposed by a fire, a criminal act. As brutal as it is honest, A BLAST uncompromisingly follows its antiheroine as she desperately tries to reclaim her life, taken from her by an overbearing mother, a simple-minded but demanding sister, a perpetually absent husband, and a hostile country. In this Greek contemporary story, more topical than ever, the absurd and the tragic go hand in hand between people, and a barely visible tenderness and longing hides behind the terrible reality.