BROADWAY

(Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Director Christos Massalas

Music by Gabriel Yared

Song “Snow Leopard” by Sillyboy’s Ghost Relatives

Label Plaza Mayor Company Ltd

Nelly has escaped from her wealthy and controlling family. As she dances in a strip club, she meets Markos, a small yet charismatic gangster, who helps her run away from her stepfather’s henchmen. Markos soon becomes her protector and lover. He brings her into Broadway, Athens, an abandoned entertainment complex squatted by a small community of dancers, tramps, thieves and a captive monkey.

For a while, everything goes well, even when Broadway hosts a mysterious man, injured and covered with bandages, wanted dead by Athens’ most dangerous mafia. However, when Markos gets arrested and imprisoned, the newcomer will take an unexpectedly important place in the gang.

For years, I have admired the work of Gabriel Yared.

I wished that one day I could have the privilege to work with him, even though such a scenario didn’t seem very likely, given the scale of films produced in Greece. I would never have imagined that the stars would align for this to happen in my first feature film.

For the music of “Broadway”, I envisioned a mixture of pre-existing dance songs (from “Fame” to Greek pop songs of the 70s) with an orchestral score that would convey the mysterious and romantic intonations of the story.

“Broadway” is a film, which draws from different genres – it is a thriller, a love story, a variété of sorts – so the music plays a key part in bridging these different traditions and moods.

The idiom of Gabriel Yared’s work was exactly what this tale called for. His music is always surprising, modulating between ever-changing climates: mysterious and yet deeply romantic; sharp and precise in composition, but fluid in its emotional resonance.

In ‘Broadway’, the music is not just underscoring the events. It is a force that drives the story, weaving a web of dramatic possibilities. It is the fuel, which sets the characters in motion, leading them through the twists and turns of chance.

And yet, like all great works, Gabriel’s music has a narrative of its own and will live and reverberate far beyond the screen.

Christos Massalas

Director