Benaki Museum launches summer festival at Pireos St annex
Following a customarily busy winter full of temporary exhibitions and special events, the Benaki Museum’s Pireos Street annex is embracing the current season with a novel concept: the Benaki Summer Festival.
Running to July 27, the festival’s events take place in the museum’s atrium, featuring a variety of open-air cinema screenings and concerts, among others. The atrium’s lighting design was undertaken by the award-winning Alekos Yiannaros.
Focusing on the visual arts, fashion, music, theater and food, highlights from the festival’s documentary and film screening program include a screening of a Moscow opera gala with soprano Anna Netrebko and baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky, a virtual tour of “Munch 150,” a retrospective on Edvard Munch at his namesake museum in Oslo, which is celebrating the 150th anniversary of the artist’s birth, as well as a screening of Alex Gibney’s behind-the-scenes documentary “We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks.”
A screening of “Bruce Springsteen & I,” a novel documentary on the American artist, is scheduled to take place on Monday, July 22. Produced by Oscar-nominated director Ridley Scott, the film opens at some 300 cinema theaters around the globe on the same day.
For the duration of the festival, the museum is putting together live Saturday gigs, featuring, among others, local acts the Burger Project and Maraveyas Ilegal.
Visitors are offered a complimentary welcome drink, while comfortable “Love Couches” for two are also available during screenings.
Benaki Museum Pireos Street Annex, 138 Pireos & Andronikou, tel 210.345.3111. Tickets can be purchased at the museum itself, at the Benaki’s flagship in Kolonaki (1 Koumbari 1 & Vas. Sofias), at Public stores and online at www.public.gr. For more information, go to www.benaki.gr.
