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NICK EFTERIADES is strolling along 30th Avenue in Astoria. Ever since he finished his first feature film, "Astoria," he's seeing his neighborhood in a whole different way.
In scenes. There's Athens Square, the heart of Astoria's Greek- American community. It is here where the star, Alex, and his pals hang out in their free time while the old-timers play backgammon. Across 31st Street, which is overshadowed by the rum- bling El, there's the Athens Cafe. It is under its Aegean Sea blue awnings, where Alex and his best friend, Theo, plot their cockeyed poker strategy.
A little farther up the block, there's Greek House Foods, the ethnic shop Alex and Theo pass by every day on their way to their jobs at Demo's, the take-out joint owned by Alex's Greek- immigrant father. And way across town, up on 23rd Street, is St. Irene's, where the beautiful Elena, the career woman from Greece whom Alex idolizes, is restoring an important ancient icon.
When the award-winning film premieres Friday, New York's Astoria will meet Efteriades' "Astoria." And Efteriades can't wait to see the reaction. In the coming-of-age film, Alex, a 28-year-old Greek- American college grad who works in his father's Astoria diner, wants to chuck the American Dream. But "da neighborhood" holds him back: His father wants him to carry on the family business; some Greek wise guys are out to get him unless he pays his dad's gambling debt; his best friend, Theo, is always coming up with no- work, get-rich- quick schemes; and Elena, a beautiful Byzantine scholar, has come to Astoria from Greece to restore an icon at St. Irene's. Alex has his own dream - to go back to Greece to search for Alexander the Great.
"The Greek-American experience has never been seen on the American screen,"...