THE JOURNEY OF GREEK MOTHERS NEVER DIE | PART FIVE
How word of mouth, actors, journalists, podcasters and the Greek-American community became our marketing machine.
GREEK MOTHERS NEVER DIE
We didn’t have a marketing machine behind us. What we had was word of mouth, and people.
That distinction became one of the most beautiful lessons of Greek Mothers Never Die. Once the film began traveling, support rarely arrived as a grand corporate strategy. It arrived as one person calling another. A journalist deciding to write. A comedian offering a microphone. A cultural society creating a screening. An actor getting on a plane. A friend introducing us to someone who would become another friend.
Little by little, people became the campaign.
The cast kept showing up
The actors did not disappear when the shoot ended. They promoted the film, came to screenings when geography and life allowed it, shared posts, stood beside me at festivals and helped give every event a different face.
That mattered because our cast was scattered. Abby Miner was in Oklahoma. Simon Rérolle was based in France and building a life between acting, music and the United States. Kelby Roberson became one of the film’s enthusiastic supporters and helped promote it. Other cast members joined wherever they could. Every reunion felt slightly improbable.
Amelia Island. The local community that helped carry an unforgettable night, with more than 350 people filling the theater.
AMC and the hometown night
AMC became an important partner in our limited theatrical release. One of the most emotional nights was the special Nassau County screening at AMC Yulee, close to Amelia Island, where we had shot so much of the film. More than 350 people filled the room. What made it unforgettable was that it was so deeply local: friends, neighbors, businesses, sponsors and people from the island who had embraced the film and helped carry that extraordinary evening.
Abby Miner traveled from Oklahoma to Florida for the evening. Nate Aron and the Amelia Island Convention & Visitors Bureau team had been wonderful supporters, and Phil Griffin and Tara Thousand of Amelia Coastal Realty helped rally local businesses and sponsors around the event. After the screening, the celebration continued at Salt Life Food Shack in Fernandina Beach. The same community that had helped us make the film was now helping us release it.
AMC Yulee. More than 350 people filled the room for a hometown night that the Amelia Island community helped make unforgettable.
The film on the marquee during its Florida theatrical journey.
New York, and one of those perfect accidents
New York brought a different kind of alignment. Our special screening at AMC Village 7 took place on April 21, 2025. Simon Rérolle was there, not because an independent production had flown him across the Atlantic for a premiere, but because life had placed him in New York at exactly the right moment. Simon, an actor, singer and rapper, travels between France and the United States as he builds his career. Somehow, our timing matched.
That kind of coincidence followed this film often. When resources were limited, timing, generosity and human connections sometimes seemed to arrive exactly when we needed them.
The Q&A brought Simon together with me, co-producer Éléonore Dailly and Greek-American comedian Ellen Karis, who moderated the evening.
A community screening Q&A: the conversations after the film became part of its journey.
New York screening details: official AMC Village 7 event page
The Greek-American community became a network
The Greek-American community did something no advertising budget could have manufactured. It gave the film relationships.
In South Florida, Malvina Currie and the Hellenic Cultural Society of South Florida helped create a home for the film through the South Florida Greek Film Festival community. The March 30 screening at Savor Cinema in Fort Lauderdale included a Q&A with cast and an afternoon gathering. It was not simply a booking. It was an invitation into a community.
Hellenic Cultural Society of South Florida event page →
South Florida. A screening became a gathering, and a gathering became another branch of the film’s community.
Greek News & Radio FL, led by Ioanna Lazarou, became another important ally. They shared the film with the diaspora and helped word of mouth move beyond the people already in the room.
In New York, that support became deeply personal too. Constantina Konugres Skarzenski became one of the film’s most generous supporters and a true friend along the way, supporting the film across different stages of its journey, including New York and Los Angeles. Mary Miles, president of the Hellenic Film Society USA, was another tremendous supporter of the film, and I was so happy that we finally got to meet in person at our New York premiere. It was one of those nights you remember.
There were many more people than I could ever name here, each contributing in their own way to the film’s journey.
The National Herald was another meaningful ally. Journalist Eleni Sakellis covered the film, and she was also there in New York. For a small film, the difference between being mentioned and being genuinely supported is enormous.
The National Herald became part of the film’s Greek-American press journey.
One introduction leads to another
Some of the most important connections began almost casually. My friend Archondia introduced me to Ellen Karis after Ellen discovered the film through the South Florida Greek community and connected with it immediately. We became friends almost as quickly.
I appeared on Ellen’s podcast, and later she came to New York to moderate our Q&A. That sequence says a lot about this entire chapter: someone sees the film, feels something, makes an introduction, and suddenly the film has another voice carrying it forward.
The same happened with comedian Angelo Tsarouchas. I met Angelo around the Los Angeles Greek Film Festival. He had seen the film and told me, with a generosity that felt completely genuine, that he liked it. Friends of his had been talking about it too. He offered me a place on Connecting Greeks, the podcast he hosts with Ari Kalos and Foti Stamos.
That episode became another boost for the film, not because it was a conventional publicity transaction, but because Angelo understood the culture behind it and spoke to an audience that understood it too.
Connecting Greeks: Filmmaker Rachel Suissa →
Connecting Greeks with Angelo Tsarouchas.
Watch the Connecting Greeks conversation →
The press wave
By then I was doing interview after interview and podcast after podcast. At first, I did not even have a publicist. At LA Femme, festival founder Leslie LaPage helped me understand something essential: finishing a film and getting people to notice that it exists are two completely different jobs.
Cher Culver and Cher Culver PR later helped turn that lesson into a real campaign. The film accumulated more than 160 pieces of coverage, interviews, reviews, podcasts, television appearances and listings. Some were deeply personal reviews. Others were national discovery moments: Entertainment Weekly included Greek Mothers Never Die in its What to Watch coverage, Decider listed it among new streaming releases, and Media Play News covered the Gravitas Ventures acquisition.
The full press record belongs on its own page. Here, a few moments are enough to show how far the film traveled.
Digital Journal gave the film 4.5 out of 5 and made the unforgettable comparison that I deserved to become ‘the next Nia Vardalos.’ Film Threat, Film Inquiry, TheaterByte and Selig Film News each responded to the film in their own way. What mattered was not collecting logos. It was realizing that a tiny independent movie had entered a much larger conversation.
The National Herald and Digital Journal: two different pieces of the press journey.
Digital Journal’s verdict became one of the memorable pieces of the press campaign.
FOX6’s Gino at the Movies was another wonderful stop. Gino Salomone interviewed me about writing, directing and acting in the film. Television, radio, podcasts, print, online reviews: for a while, it felt as if I was constantly explaining this strange little movie and the mother who had inspired it.
FOX6 Milwaukee: Gino at the Movies.
Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York: the faces kept changing
At every stop, different members of the film family stepped forward. Kelby Roberson supported the film and promoted it. In Los Angeles, cast, friends and new allies gathered around the movie. In San Francisco, another Greek film community welcomed us. In New York, Simon, Éléonore, Ellen and members of the Greek-American press and cultural community made the screening feel much larger than the resources behind it.
An audience waiting for the film. For an independent filmmaker, a room like this is the campaign made visible.
And then the film gave something back
Community support was never meant to be one-way. In January 2026, Greek Mothers Never Die returned to the Port Richey area for a charitable screening at the historic Richey Suncoast Theatre in New Port Richey. Ela Greek Restaurant helped organize and support the event, and $4 from each ticket was designated for the Greek Children’s Fund of Florida, helping sick children and their families.
After so many people had opened doors for the film, I loved the idea that a screening could open a door for someone else.
Ela Greek Restaurant helped turn the Port Richey screening into a community event that also gave back.
Richey Suncoast Theatre, New Port Richey. A community screening with a charitable purpose.
From word of mouth to distribution
All of that energy mattered when the film moved into distribution. Gravitas Ventures acquired North American rights, and Greek Mothers Never Die was released digitally and On Demand in the United States and Canada on May 9, 2025, later finding audiences across platforms including Amazon, Apple TV, Tubi, Roku, Plex and Prime Video.
I had known Gravitas by reputation long before this film and approached them directly. Seeing the movie move from a seventeen-day Florida shoot to a real North American release was surreal.
But the distributor was only one part of the story. Before the film could reach a platform, people had already carried it from Athens to Florida, Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York. They had shared links, filled rooms, posted interviews, written articles, recorded podcasts and told friends.
The film had become bigger than our production company because it had entered other people’s lives.
Letting the baby go
Filmmakers talk endlessly about making a movie. We talk less about the moment when we have to stop holding it.
At some point, the baby leaves home. You no longer control who discovers it first, what they understand, which joke they love, which review stings, which stranger writes to tell you that Despina reminds them of their mother.
That is terrifying. It is also the entire point.
Greek Mothers Never Die left home because a lot of people opened the door. Some were there from the beginning. Some appeared for one screening. Some became friends. Some simply told one other person to watch the movie.
For an independent film, sometimes that is the machine.