Concrete Rodents

It's not everyday you come across a short film that takes its inspiration from the director's own poem, but it's an indication of the creativity.of Apostolis Gkanatsios that this one is. Interestingly, the poem in question - which will be published as part of a collection later this year - appears at the end rather than the beginning of this slick noir focusing on a group of friends with a plan for the night.

Petros (Dimitris Kapouranis), Aris (Giorgos Katsis) and Giorgos (Dimitris Grotsis) are meeting a man (Vasilis Anastasou) for a transaction that is less than legal. They're also amateurs. Gkanatsios puts the car the trio take to the meeting to good use visually. There are slick shots of the night time streets - set to a hip hop beat by Thodoris Daskalakis - and the car is often carved in two so that only one of the young men is in the frame.

Working as his own cinematographer, Gkanatsios turns up the atmosphere with the inky blues, aquamarine greens and high neons of night.

"Whatever happens, happens," says one of the lads. Three words that speak to a full gamut of emotions, from hopefulness and fatalism to excitement and nihilism Gkanatsios captures the vacillation of emotions, from the elation of achievement and expectation to the sweaty fear of reality. Concrete rodents may be hard, but so is the world they inhabit.