An inextinguishable ray of light from Paris for experimental Greek cinema
Paris, flooded with light for the festive season, its streets full of movement and shops – including the bookshops – full of people, offers all kinds of free entertainment. The crowds are thickest around the Champs Elysees. Amid the bright lights is a spotlight on experimental Greek cinema and filmmakers. The New Cinema Club, newly founded by the Greek community of Paris, screened a tribute to experimental cinema last night. The Maison de Grece, situated in the Place des Vosges, is the headquarters of the Greek community, whose president is Andreas Tsapis, an academic. Ambassador Ilias Kilis and Consul General Giorgos Paizis are patrons and warm supporters of the effort. Last night the screening marathon paid tribute to a Greece that is far from the conventional stereotype. The program includes The Song of Love (1950), a film by Jean Genet, produced by Nikos Papatakis (and banned for 25 years in France), Carol Roussopoulou’s film Genet Talks About Angela Davis (1970), Francis Coulon’s work I Varimeni (1957), Dionysos Andronis’s film Antinoos(1991) and Tango (2000), as well as four films by Alexis Bistikas, for whom it will be a Parisian premiere. So successful? Have I died? wrote Bistikas, in Evangelismos, (Patakis, 1994). Now it is as if he had not passed away, because his work, those four films with their poetic, penetrating, philosophical and political outlook on everyday survival (that was his passion – the brilliance of a person in his life) remind us of the spark that still shines. The four films, The Kiss (1990), The Naked Stare (1991), The Breast (1992) and The Clearing (1993), which have won awards and been screened at international festivals and on British television, reflect the freshness of the first period of his work, when he was a student, before his more complex films (The Tie and The Dawn). Helbi (Eleni Bistika) was there, as the mother of the filmmaker. HELBI Difficulty for TVX Hellas investment overcome
