Amid a tense political climate, the opposition leader of an unnamed Cold War-era country is killed in what looks like an accident. When a prosecutor finds evidence of a government cover-up, witnesses start to get targeted... A thinly veiled account of the 1963 assassination of Greek politician Grigoris Lambrakis and its aftermath, Z captures the outrage about the US-backed military junta that ruled Greece at the time of its release.
Summer 1969. Dictatorship. In a small country town, young Achileas breaks his leg by falling off the yard wall of the local cinema. He wanted to see Brigit Bardot naked... However, during his visit to the city to treat his broken leg, for the first time in his life he sees a television! The program informs about the launching of Apollo to the moon. The idea of the launching becomes Achileas' obsession and along with his friends they collect money, in order to purchase a TV set. However, soon, the dilemma becomes imperative. Will they buy a television or "visit" all together Uranya in order to be taught the secrets of love?
The film is the story of a group of soldiers, who, in the course of their compulsory military service in 1967 and 1968, before and during the military dictatorship in Greece, are assigned to the then recently founded Armed Forces Television. This TV station, founded for the civilian population, was run by the Cinematographic Unit of the army which until then had only produced propaganda films and newsreels and was responsible for entertaining the troops and other charity organizations with movie screenings. The personnel was composed mostly of soldiers, who already had experience in the film business in their civilian lives, as well as those who received their training in the army. The story may be only 95% true, but that is simply because the true story is even more absurd...
Kostas is a law-abiding citizen, a quite man living with his mother, his sister Kaiti and his younger brother, Giorgos, who is a student. He works day and night at his kiosk, living to his bone the everyday reality and troubles of the period. He is in love with Eleni and wants to marry her, but he has to wait until Kaiti is married to Leonidas, her extremely conservative fiancé. The military coup of April 1967 forces Kostas to take the side of the winners, hanging, each time, the picture of their most powerful leader, while Giorgos joins a resistance group that sets up bombs. Giorgos’ actions puts Kostas in big trouble.
At the time of the Greek junta, in an isolated army camp, a lieutenant forces a soldier to teach him the tango in order to ask the wife of his Colonel to dance with him.
The film documents the conversion of young Greek Military Police (ESA) recruits into torturers and touches on the subject of the power of the institution to compel otherwise moral human beings to torture. The documentary examines the processes and methods of the military junta that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974.
