The short film "Casus Belli" by Yorgos Zois was released in 2010 as his debut in the film world. It was rewarded at the 67th Venice Film Festival and many others international film festivals.

The young director was born in Athens where he now lives.

The short movie is about “queuing “. There are seven different lines and the first person in one line is the last of another one. People wait in a supermarket, out of a club, in the church, a museum, a betting office, a cash machine, a food truck for people in need. They are all different people with different jobs and needs but the same goal: surviving. And when there's no food anymore, chaos happens. And as domino, when the first in the line falls, they all fall down. 

The first picture in the film is a overloaded shopping cart, but in the end from the abundance we reach the absence of food. It's not difficult then to associate that to the Greek economic crisis. The film criticizes global consumerism and the shame that Greece felt to be a developed European country with people going hungry or becoming homeless. 

The title “Casus belli” is a Latin expression for “the reason for war” and Zois chose to refer it to the civil war between Greek social classes as poverty in the last years has created a big gap among them. 

This short film gives us something to think about.

If you are interested in more from Yorgos Zois, you could watch his second short film "Out of Frame" and his movie "Interruption" released in 2016, where the director redefines the boundaries between fiction and reality: during a theater play the audience is forced to go up on the stage and make decision as they were the characters of the play.