Visual identity design for the short film “The River Runs Through the Village”

“The River Runs Through the Village” is a short film by Xenophon Nikolakopoulos. It narrates the story of Andreas, a man approaching 40 whose father, suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, no longer recognizes him. In an effort to help him remember, Andreas revisits old family memories.

The central key visual designed for the film revolves around the process of memory retrieval. As Andreas watches old family videotapes, he recalls a childhood game he played with his father. They would throw dry twigs into the river and watch their path as they were carried away by the current, declaring the winner the one whose twig traveled the farthest.

The twigs are placed in different positions on the various promotional materials designed for the film, thus referring to their random movement within the river’s current but also symbolizing on a second level the very movement of the two protagonists’ lives as they sometimes converge and sometimes diverge, following the current of time. This visual metaphor serves as a key to deciphering the central thematic core of the film, which explores the allegorical relationship between time and memory, concluding that our memories seem to be our only true wealth.