Memoir of a Veering Storm

Memoir of a Veering Storm begins with a young girl, Anna (Daphne Peel) sitting in the back of her mother’s car with the wind tousling her hair. On the radio, broadcasters warn of a tropical-like cyclone about to hit Greece bringing with it severe winds, torrential rain, and devastating flooding. Despite her calm demeanour as she’s driven to school, Anna’s personal life is also in a moment of quiet foreboding before a prospective storm in this gently gripping short from Sofia Georgovassilli.

Once at school, with branches beginning to sway dramatically in the wind, Anna scaled the school fence and goes to meet her boyfriend and best friend. They are accompanying her to the hospital for a decision that will arguably define her journey into adulthood – an abortion – but equally, their support seems to act as a barricade against the rough waters ahead. They sit in the corridor, waiting for the doctor, decorating Anna’s stomach, and dreamily suggesting names. The 16mm imagery adds to this sense of a youthful day that seems as much a hazy memory as a life-defining calamity.

The analogue between the gathering portent of the pregnancy and the genuine weather front is not the only connection drawn to nature. Anna’s friend observes ants scurrying around near their nest preparing for the downpour and imagines the earth, impassive – like Anna – to their tickling little feet much like Anna is. She also relays that Roe deer, as seen on a screen in the film’s opening moments, pause pregnancies until they are better able to raise their young. We’re painfully reminded that this was not an option for Anna in the film’s one heart-wrenching scene of emotion, in the recovery ward, but Memoir of a Veering Storm presents Anna’s actions as similarly crucial. The film is tinged with hope as much as sadness, at what was lost but also what may have been lost if the cyclone had stayed its course.

Director, screenplay: Sofia Georgovassili
Cast: Daphne Peel, Konstantinos Sideris, Stefania Sotiropoulou, Maria Kallimani
Cinematography: Tudor Panduru
Producers: Sofia Georgovassili, Stelios Cotionis
Editor: Giorgos Zafeiris
Sound: Persefoni Miliou
Venue: Berlin Film Festival (Generation 14plus)
In Greek
14 minutes