Brides

In 1922 a ship leaves Greece for America carrying seven hundred prospective brides. None of them has met her husband; each holds a photograph and a contract. Niki Douka from Samothraki is one of them, travelling to save her family's honour. Because she can sew, she spends the crossing altering the wedding dresses of the women in steerage. On board she meets an American photographer coming back from the fighting at Smyrna that same year. Pantelis Voulgaris lines up the women of an uprooted generation along the narrow corridors of a single ship. Some were tricked into it, some are running from something, some chose it outright. Giorgos Arvanitis shoots it pale and nearly drained of colour, so the period arrives already looking like a memory. Martin Scorsese is one of the executive producers, and Damian Lewis plays the photographer.