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News
Release |
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New
Greek Cinema
6th Annual Film Festival - April
19 - 25, 2002
@ Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Avenue at Second Street, New York , NY 10005
Tel. 212.505.5181 (for information and tickets)
Presented
by
The Foundation for Hellenic Culture, Inc.
and the Greek Film Center, Athens
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IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
Contact:
The Foundation for Hellenic Culture, Inc.:
Tel.: 212.308.6908 - Fax: 212.308.0919
E-mail: iep.ny@ix.netcom.com
www.foundationhellenicculture.com
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| The
Foundation for Hellenic Culture in New York in association with
the Greek Film Center, Athens present the 6th Annual Film Festival:
New Greek Cinema. April 19 - 25, 2002@ the Anthology Film Archives,
32 Second Avenue@2nd Street, New York, |
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Friday,
April 19 - 4 pm
Back Door (Greek title: Pisso Porta)
A film by Yorgos Tsemberopoulos, 2000, 100 min.
Athens, 1966. After his father's untimely death, thirteen
year-old Dimitris sees his pampered mother collapsing
and resolves to skip childhood in order to stand by her
and continue his father's work. A brutal coming of age
ritual follows, complicated by the revolutionary atmosphere
of Greece in the 60's. Back Door is a masterwork
of emotion and conflict.
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Friday,
April 19 - 6 pm & Tuesday, April 23 - 6 pm
Log Books - George Seferis
(Greek title: Imerologia Katastromatos: Yorgos Seferis)
A documentary film by Tselios Haralambopoulos, 2001, 70
min.
A profound journey into the poetry and thought of George
Seferis, perhaps Greece's most accomplished contemporary
poet.
Seferis was a wordsmith (a Nobel Prize Winner, 1963), a
lover of work and austerity, and a indefatigable literary
craftsman.
This is the story of a tireless voyager seen through places,
texts, music, films, people and successive layers of experience
that accumulate into a rich foundation of facts both significant
and insignificant, on which the life of Seferis' poetry
is constructed. |
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Friday,
April 19 - 8 pm
Fading
Light (Greek title: To fos svinei)
A film by Vassilis Douros, 2000, 107 min.
The moving tale of an isolated boy growing up on the picturesque
island of Chalki.
Christos is gifted with an extraordinary musical talent
but may lose his sight to a rare disease. His skill is fostered
by his hermit grandfather and young school-teacher, but
discouraged by his mother, who fears he will follow in the
footsteps of his errant musician father. These forces clash
when Christos' teacher decides to take him to a violin competition
in Athens. While his fate is caught between the fears of
the past and the promise of the future, he seeks hope through
the eyes of music. |
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Friday,
April 19 - 10 pm & Thursday, April 25 - 10 pm
The 7th Sun of Love (Greek
title: O evdemos ilios tou erota)
A film by Vangelis Serdaris, 2001, 124 min.
A young maidservant becomes the object of desire pursued
by a major in the Greek army, his young and ineffectual
groom, and the major's wife. But none of them can predict
how the tide of history will overcome their petty and
corrupt lives as Greece's Asia Minor disaster draws near.
The 7th Sun of Love is a dark, human drama about
authority, revenge and desire.
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Saturday,
April 20 - 4 pm
Mourning Rock (Greek title: Agelastos petra)
A film by Philippos Koutsaftis, 2000, 87 min.
It was in Eleusis that Demeter bestowed the gift of grain
to the earth. It was here that Greece's largest industries
developed and it was here that filmmaker Philippos Koutsaftis
uncovered the humble and tragic life of an ancient city
alive in the modern world. This is an ambitious and powerful
story of a handful of humans documented across a decade
in their attempts to preserve the past, enrich the future
and enjoy the present. |
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Saturday,
April 20 - 6 pm & Thursday, April 25 -8 pm
Stakaman (Greek title:
Stakaman)
A film by Antonis Kafetzopoulos, 2001, 90 min.
Costas' inheritance includes a perplexing proviso. In addition
to the fur business and mansion, he receives the responsibility
of caring for two old men, Petros and Pavlos. Both are troublesome,
one is his father, but no one can be sure of which. Costas
must uncover the truth while trying to win custody of his
daughter and rebuild his life. Menwhile, the two old men
use every trick in the book to undermine each other's claim
to his paternity. |
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Saturday,
April 20 - 8 pm & Wednesday, April 24 - 10 pm
Alexandria (Greek title:
Alexandria)
A film by Maria Iliou, 2001, 105 min.
A tour-de-force from director Maria Iliou, Alexandria
adroitly questions the bonds of family and the untold complications
to be found on the path to love. Elena and Nina, mother
and daughter, travel to the city of Elena's youth. The two
become close for the first time when Nina discovers that
her mother found her first and greatest love in the cosmopolitan
Alexandria of the 1950's, but before long it becomes clear
that she hasn't revealed the whole truth. |
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Saturday,
April 20 - 10 pm
My Best Friend (Greek title:
O kaliteros mou filos)
A surrealistic comedy by Lakis Lazopoulos, 2000, 102 min.
My Best Friend is the outrageous story of two men,
friends since childhood, who have spent their lives tormenting
one another. It is only when Constantinos discovers Alekos
in bed with his wife that their friendship and their respective
marriages finally collapse into a death spiral of sex, deceit
and irrepressible humor. As events unfold another deception,
one concealed by both men's wives, opens the door to incredible
erotic intrigue. Antonis Kafetzopoulos delivers a virtuoso
performance in this surrealistic comedy about lies, friendship,
love and deadlock. |
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Sunday,
April 21 - 4 pm
Roadblocks
(Greek title: Klisti Dromi)
A film about the borders of despair by Stavros Ioannou,
2000, 98 min.
Roadblocks follows, in documentary fashion, the journey
of an eldest son in search of his brother who has disappeared,
among so many thousands like him, into the invisible life
of the refugee. His story merges with that of his countrymen
on a quest toward the bright lights of the West in this
chilling investigation of one of the greatest social concerns
in Greece today. |
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Sunday,
April 21 - 6 pm
Bonus
(Greek title: Efapax)
A film by Nikos Zapatinas, 2001, 90 min.
To stop his wife and mother-in-law from getting their hands
on his retirement bonus, Pantelis takes off for the good
life and establishes himself in every trendy scene in Greece.
As he transforms into a hip 45 year-old he is pursued not
only by his ex-wife and mother-in-law, but by another woman,
who claims that, despite her sexual experience, she has
known true love only with him. |
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Sunday,
April 21 - 8 pm
The
Four Seasons of the Law (Greek title: I earini
sinaxis ton agrofilakon)
A film by Dimmos Avdeliodis, 1999, 178 min.
The island of Chios, 1960. Four field guards are sequentially
appointed and dismissed from an unwanted post in a supposedly
cursed rural province. They arrive and depart with the turn
of the seasons, coming to know, and usually fear, the idiosyncratic
locals in this gorgeous portrait of Greek country life that
glows with humor and drama. |
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Monday,
April 22 - 6 pm
Ephemeral
Town (Greek title: Ephimeri poli)
The story of a Journey. A film by Giorgos Zafiris, 2000,
89 min.
Ephemeral Town is a deft examination of the changing
rhythms of life on a Greek island that is imbued both with
myth and the immediate concerns of a changing world. This
deeply human story follows the emotional odyssey of a man
in search of the home of his deceased mother. Lost among
unfamiliar landscapes and peoples, he finds that somewhere
between expectation and reality, between fantasy and truth,
lies his true home. |
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Monday,
April 22 - 8 pm
The Only Journey of his Life (Greek title: To
monon tis zois tou taxidion)
A film by Lakis Papastathis, 2001, 87 min.
As Georgios Vizneyos, one of Greece's greatest authors,
degenerates in an Athens mental asylum, the tale of another
story-teller, his grandfather, begins to emerge through
his mad ramblings. This lavish film recreates (through his
own words) the writer's childhood life, rich with fantasy
and legend. Apprenticed to a tailor, young Georgios' mind
is filled with his grandfather fairy tales. He ponders the
hill from which one can climb into the sky and waits each
day for the chance to bring clothes to the princess and
win her heart through song. But, just as reality begins
to germinate doubt in his mind, Georgios is called home
to his ailing grandfather, who will reveal one final, true
story that may prove to be the most fantastic of all. |
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Tuesday,
April 23 - 8 pm
Brazilero (Greek title:
Brazilero)
A film by Sotiris Goritsas, 2001, 95 min.
A delightful original search for the difference between
those mistakes we must account for and those that we deserve
to get away with. The burning question in this tragicomic
adventure concerns the fate of a government endowment sent
for the construction of a cultural center in a rural Greek
town. The answer everyone wants involves, but is not limited
to an archeological dig, a crumbling marriage and the ill-advised
purchase of a brazilian soccer player. The characters involved
tumble through cascading layers of deception and finally
learn that when you hit rock bottom, the only person you
owe an explanation to is yourself. |
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Wednesday,
April 24 - 6 pm
Beautiful
People
A film by Nikos Panayotopoulos, 2001, 105 min.
An erotic and sumptuous love story (of sorts) that takes
place across a summer on the island of Mykonos. A newlywed
couple is invited to stay with a wealthy and divisive business
mogul. The setting is lush, and the other guests are radiant
and eccentric, but beneath these perfect appearances lies
a hotbed of greed, deceit, temptation and betrayal. The
characters are increasingly seduced by a chain of destruction
and contempt, while an alcoholic American filmmaker looks
on with a bemused detachment that conceals a secret of his
own. |
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Wednesday,
April 24 - 8 pm
Under
the Stars (Greek title: Kato apo t' astra)
A film by Christos Georgiou, 2001, 87 min.
Gripping and prize-winning drama against the backdrop of
the forgotten conflict on Cyprus, where UN soldiers guard
the demarcation line between Greek and Turkish territories,
Lukas witnessed the violence preceeding partition and can't
seem to get his head out of the past. Phoebe is firmly rooted
in the present, and makes a living smuggling goods across
the Green Line demarcation for a considerable sum of money,
Phoebe agrees to smuggle Lukas to the Turkish side, so he
can visit the village where he grew up. As the two squabble
and quarrel Phoebe skillfully talks their way through border
posts and checkpoints. When they reach their destination,
the deserted village comes magically to life. Among the
spirits of their lost relatives, Lukas and Phoebe find a
way to cope with the future. |
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Thursday,
April 25 - 6 pm
Athens
Blues (Greek title: Mia Mera ti Nychta)
A film by George Panoussopoulos, 2000, 110 min.
Set to the work of musical powerhouse Markos Vamvakaris
Athens Blues is an involving examination of place
and identity. Young Thomas runs away to explore the nighttime
streets of Athens. His course weaves through the lives of
nine of the city's inhabitants, connected through parallel
incidents. He finds that these people and the city they
live in become very different after the sun sets. Each seeks
a new persona during the hours of darkness, and each finds
that in the morning that they are left with only themselves.
Across the course of a single summer night the city becomes
a magical realm when seen through the eyes of a child. |
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The
Foundation for Hellenic Culture is a nonprofit organization founded
in Athens in 1992 to promote and disseminate Greek culture and
language at the international level. Today, under the auspices
of the Greek Ministry of Culture and with branches in Odessa,
Alexandria, Berlin, Paris, London and New York, the FHC organizes
and supports a vast range of activities including exhibitions,
concerts, lectures, film festivals, music and dance festivals.
The New York branch, with seven years of consistent presence within
New York, strives to bring to the American public unique programs
of Greek artistry, creativity, and spirit. Join the Foundation
for Hellenic Culture for a fascinating journey through Greek civilization.
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