When the Cypress Whispers

The power of family tradition and heritage is compassionately explored in Corporon’s debut about Daphne, a Greek-American woman who, having lost her husband and the father of her daughter, Evie, in a car accident in the U.S., tries to rebuild the pieces of her life in Greece. Daphne, the stressed-out owner of a high-end Greek restaurant in New York, finally gets some relief by taking the five-year-old, Evie, to the Greek island, Erikousa, where she spent idyllic summers as a child with her grandmother, “Yia-yia.” She plans to get married there to her wealthy fiancé, Stephen, whom Daphne met while applying for a loan to start the restaurant. Upon arrival, she clashes with a fisherman named Yianni, who is a close friend of her grandmother but suspicious of Americanized Greeks like Daphne. As Daphne tries to reconcile the traditions that mean so much to her with the reality of what a future would be like with the no-nonsense, work-centered Stephen, she uncovers the story (based on fact) of how the people of Erikousa saved the life of a Jewish family during WWII. Corporon, a senior producer with the entertainment show Extra, can tell a good tale, and her love for her Greek heritage permeates the story, but the trajectory of Daphne’s transformation is muddied by melodrama and ambiguity. Agent: Jan Miller and Nena Madonia, Dupree Miller & Associates, (Apr.)