Sweet Country

Sweet Country

Ben

Eva

Paul

Monica

Juan

Mrs. Araya

Mr. Araya

Father Venegas

Sister Mathilde

Dorothy

Max

Sara

Torturer

Evelyn

Pauline

Angry Woman

Ira

Mrs. Ortega

Mr. Ortega

Jane

Maria Paz

Jose

Search Officer

Kay

Waitress

Rebellious Soldier

Mario

Cousin Margarita

Cab Driver

Aunt Soledad

Interrogator

Pablo (as Tonis Yakovakis)

In order to achieve the feeling of horror in a scene where a gathering of female prisoners are harassed and psychologically tortured in the nude, director Mihalis Kakogiannis decided to appeal for volunteers rather than professional actors, asking both his associates and friends. Cacoyannis interviewed women of different nationalities, including English, French, Americans and Greeks. Most of these women had never even seen a film camera, let alone undressed before one. Money was never an incentive for them. Cacoyannis said, "I explained that their inexperience in acting was an advantage, that their lack of artifice, the spirituality of their spontaneous reactions, would transcend physical realism, the way certain paintings can." At first he was not too successful "recruiting" volunteers, but soon found the women he needed. One was a well-known author, another a journalist, three were college professors, others university students, secretaries or just housewives. The shooting of this sequence was completed in five very stressful hours, and the reactions were neither planned nor rehearsed. At the end of the shooting day, their eyes still full of tears, some of them expressed their gratitude for what they called "a unique experience".

Anna: All you ever gave me was a tepid lemonade!