Loukianos Moshonas has been at important festivals like Locarno, New Directors/New Films and DocumentaMadrid 2017, where he won the award for best short film. "Manodopera" takes place in Greece and alternates between scenes on the ground floor and scenes on the roof of a building. Downstairs: the manual work of Andy who rebuilds the house. Upstairs: the idleness in a conversation between friends – the idleness of the talks, of thought, the idleness missing in the society they criticise, a doomed society, with no common goals. Loukianos is good at expressing himself through words, images and sounds, and he knows these only have value considering their positions and relations. His fragmented images (hands, actors seen from the back or in three-quarter view, as if in a freehand drawing) remind us of Bresson. His power of synthesis makes us think of Kiarostami. Because of its formal images, the film moves away from a realism with clumsy cameras that squeezes actors expecting them to make a miracle. "Manodopera" on the contrary, has short, precise camera movements and the editing shapes reality rather than just document it. Its simple gaze combined with its delicate composition make an excellent balance between aestheticism and the social theme. (RB)