America, America is a 1963 American dramatic film directed, produced and written by Elia Kazan, from his own book. In this tale, loosely based upon the life of Kazan's uncle, the director uses little-known cast members, with the entire storyline revolving around the central performance of Greek actor Stathis Giallelis , twenty-two years old at the time of production, who is in virtually every scene of the nearly three-hour movie. The film begins in the late 1890s, as young Greek Stavros Topouzoglou , living in an impoverished village in Turkish Anatolia witnesses brutal oppression by the... Turkish authorities of the Greek and Armenian minorities. He is entrusted by his father with the family's financial resources in a mission of hope to the Turkish capital Constantinople [renamed Istanbul in 1930], where he would work in the carpet business of his father's cousin , although his own dream is to reach the faraway land of opportunity, America. His odyssey begins with a long voyage on a donkey and on foot through the impoverished towns and villages on the way to Constantinople.
more