Evolution Mallorca International Film Festival 2026: Elena’s Shift

Elena (Maria Dragus) is a Romanian immigrant living in Greece with her mother (Rodica Lazar) and young son Luca (Filippos Sklikas). Despite having a strong grasp of the language and culture, she’s denied Greek citizenship for arbitrary reasons. Her situation only becomes more complicated when she’s informed that her work contract is about to expire. Convinced of foul play, she reaches out to union lawyer Yota (Penelope Tsilika) for help. As a romance blossoms between the pair, they fight to expose the shady tactics being used against immigrant workers.

Based on a true story, the debut feature from Stefanos Tsivopoulos contains elements of Ken Loach’s grassroots dramas. While Elena’s Shift raises the alarm surrounding the mistreatment of workers during the tail end of the financial crisis, its message often gets lost within an uneven jumble of plotlines.

Tsivopoulos does an excellent job establishing Elena’s predicament during the first act. She’s stuck in a low-paying job cleaning a metro station and has no financial support from Luca’s father or time to enrol her son in piano lessons as she promised. All her immigrant coworkers are quitting or being let go, with Elena being encouraged by a friend to seek other work in Berlin. When she suddenly learns that she’s going to lose her job too, viewers understand the severity of what this means and will be rooting for her to get justice.

Rather than getting bogged down in the technicalities of what the fraudulent “white contracts” are or how the company has been getting away with it, the filmmaker instead puts the focus squarely on how Elena navigates the challenges she faces. Dragus is nothing short of spectacular throughout, keeping the feature firmly grounded with a subdued and heartwarming performance. Tsilika is also outstanding here, with the leads’ chemistry creating a romance that feels natural.

By not giving audiences more information about the topic at hand, though, it’s difficult to understand the full extent of the issues being highlighted. The third act consequently falls flat once the stakes are finally raised, especially when this central plotline is frequently overshadowed by Elena’s personal problems. While Tsivopoulos’s exploration of the main subject falls short, an extraordinary performance from Dragus is more than enough to make Elena’s Shift serve as a compelling character piece.

Andrew Murray

Elena’s Shift does not have a release date yet.