A CHAPLAIN IN DISGUISE
by Iulios Kouroupis. 2024. 70 min.
Iulios Kouroupis' first motion picture was photographed in the basement room of his childhood home in Rockaway Park, New York, over the course of three years. The central figure is his childhood friend, Justin Rivera.
When asked, Iulios said that his picture is about a great chess player who lives in the basement of a church; though the building is almost certainly not a church, and the room might not be in a basement.
When Iulios asked Justin to describe it, he wrote, "a man all alone, who is a masterly and dexterous chess player living a confined life, battles his mind in a decrepit tiny room. He is particularly particular and appears to live his life with both routine and disorder at the same time, slow and calculated, yet brisk and rash."
In the words of Abraham Cowley,
Just as a bird that flies about
And beats itself against the cage,
Finding at last no passage out
It sits, and sings, and so overcomes its rage.
On a wall hang paintings by Lala Kouroupis and George Kouroupis. With music by Frédéric Chopin.
Post-screening Q&A.
Our Sponsors
Rockaway Film Festival would like to thank VBX™~Vernam Basin Terminal for generously hosting us at the Arverne Cinema in addition to BBX™~Barbadoes Basin Terminal for contributing to such.
RFF is proud to be sponsored by Blundstone®, Istic Illic Pictures, and NYC Ferry. Rockaway Film Festival made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Rockaway Film Festival is funded in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Art, and by the Howard Gilman Foundation administered by Flushing Town Hall. RFF receives additional support from Queens Borough President Donovan Richards.