Contemporary Greek cinema at Paris theaters
It is a rare thing for Greek cinema to enjoy a strong presence abroad. But this has been one of its best years. Apart from Panos Koutras’s «Strella,» which is currently earning positive reviews at French movie theaters, the French capital is also hosting the 6th Panorama of Contemporary Greek Cinema, which started yesterday and runs to December 8. Jointly organized by the Consulate General of Greece in Paris, the Greek Film Center, the press office of the Greek Embassy in Paris and France’s Society of Scriptwriters, Directors and Producers (Societe des Auteurs-Realisateurs-Producteurs), the event started with Giorgos Lanthimos’s «Kynodontas» (Dogtooth), which hits Parisian cinemas today. The panorama is taking place at the Cinema des Cineastes and has the support of acclaimed filmmaker Costa-Gavras. The poster for the event was created by Giorgos Golfinos, a professor at the Thessaloniki School of Fine Arts. The program contains some of the most representative productions of the Greek film industry from the past 10 years, an overall 12 feature films and six shorts. Other than Lanthimos’s award-winning «Dogtooth,» the other feature films are Filippos Tsitos’s «Akadimia Platonos» (Plato’s Academy), Panos Karkanevatos’s «Kala krymmena mystika, Athanasia» (Well Kept Secrets – Athanassia), Nikos Panayotopoulos’s «Athina-Konstadinoupoli» (Athens-Istanbul), Angeliki Antoniou’s «Eduart,» Yannis Smaragdis’s «El Greco,» Christos Georgiou’s «Mikro eglima» (Small Crime), Kalliopi Legaki’s «Filo kai Marina» (Filo and Marina), Vardis Marinakis’s «Mavro livadi» (Black Field), Thanos Anastopoulos’s «Diorthosi» (Correction), Markos Gastin’s «Themis» and Petros Sevastikoglou’s «Treis stigmes» (Three Moments). Shorts will include Kyros Papavasiliou’s «Gia to onoma tou spourgitiou» (In the Name of the Sparrow), Irina Boiko’s «Kali chronia Mama» (Have a Good Year, Mom), Vanessa Zouganeli’s «Gina Dostoyevsky,» Maria Maganari’s «Klene tin ora pou ta skotonoun» (They Cry when they Kill Them), Timon Koulmasis and Iro Siafliaki’s «Nikos Papatakis, portreto enos eleftherou skopefti» (Nikos Papatakis, Portrait of a Sniper) and Vilka Tzouras’s «When Fish Fly.»
