Brandon Poonwasie's Media Blog

Papadopolous and sons

Papadopoulos & Sons is a British comedy-drama feature-film written and directed by indie filmmaker Marcus Markou. 

Plot summary:

Following the loss of his business due to the financial hardships, Harry Papadopolous, a self-made millionaire, must embark on a journey with his family, and estranged brother to get their lives back.

Production:

The film was inspired by Marcus's own life events. He used his identity crisis and family history/roots, which caused him to use the family-unit as a main theme of focus.

"I came from a very tight knit Greek-Cypriot family. However, as we grew older and grew up, my family, like so many other families, broke apart. I also lost so many of my Hellenic roots. In making the film I reached out to that sense of family that had been lost and I reached out to my Hellenic roots. [The film] is not about being Greek or Cypriot at all. I use that as backdrop. It really is about family unity at a difficult time".

Shot in London, the location manager found two abandoned shops in Morden, South London, which they turned into the kebab shop, where their art department were, and the 'Three Brothers' fish and chip shop. The scenes in the city were shot in Central London, i.e. when they were walking along by the Thames at London Bridge. The mansion was found in Croydon. 

The film was produced by Double M Films, and was distributed by:

• Hollywood Entertainment (2012) (Greece) (theatrical)
• Miracle Communications Ltd. (2013) (UK) (theatrical)
• Neue Visionen Filmverleih (2013) (Germany) (theatrical)

Among the cast were:
Stephen Dillane
Georgia Groome

Ed Stoppard

Frank Dillane

Cosima Shaw

George Corraface

Selina Cadell

Marketing:
The film can be found on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Youtube, as well as IMDB. The theatrical trailer was released on the 23rd April 2012, on Youtube. The film also has an official site.

The film was shown in 14 Cineworld cinemas across the UK, originally planned to run for one week with little or no success, but had an unprecedented audience, which caused it to be allowed a longer running time and, in Shaftesbury avenue, it moved from a 100 seat screen to a 500 seat screen.