Koundouros's first film shows the important influence of neorealism but also how neorealism was translated and transformed into a uniquely Greek expression. Magic City is set in the shantytowns of Athens, with a style "at once poetic and violent (and) with a strange, passionate involvement with the fate of his heroes" (NFT). The narration roams this working-class neighborhood, settling on a truck driver who is tempted by the lure of crime but saved by love and the community. Koundouros, who studied painting and sculpture before turning to cinema, exhibits an exceptional feeling for these qualities in the film image. He was essentially the first of the Greek film artists to buck the commercial studio tradition with this production, for which he commissioned a screenplay by the avant-garde writer Margarita Lymberaki.