With a story and setting drawn from the front lines of Europe’s refugee crisis, Amerika Square, is an eye-opening and enthralling drama that explores the business of borders and the causes and repercussions of nationalist resentment.

Though the bigotry-spewing Nakos (Makis Papadimitriou, Chevalier, PSIFF 2016; Suntan, PSIFF 2017) longs for the days when his neighborhood square was not crowded with immigrants and refugees, his left-leaning friend Billy still humors him. Maybe Billy feels sorry for his lifelong friend, the perpetually single, jobless, 38-year-old who still lives with his parents, or maybe the tattoo artist has nothing better to do in their low-income neighborhood of Athens. In the same neighborhood, but practically another universe, Syrian refugee Tarek will sacrifice everything to secure safe passage out of Nakos’ beloved city for himself and his daughter. And when Nakos takes his obsession with “making Athens Greek again” to an extreme, Billy must confront his own silent complicity.

In competition for the FIPRESCI Prize.