Discoveries from Greece World Cinema

KATARAKT focuses on ‘Katarraktis’ a coastal village in the Greek island of Chios located 11 km across Turkey, relating its name to the eye disease of 'cataract’. As many Turkish people who cannot return back home visit ‘Katarraktis’ to look at their villages across, the film uses the wordplay to talk about blurred vision, memory, migration and borders.

If I was a bird, I would look through the windows of the flats all the time. But they choose not to do so.

Based on Antoine Köpe’s private memoirs and unseen archive collection of unprecedented scope and beauty, Antoine the Fortunate tells the story of survival of a man and his family during the most turbulent times of the Ottoman Empire and the creation of modern Turkey. Antoine was an Austro-Hungarian citizen of the Ottoman Empire who witnessed the Balkan Wars, fought in Palestine during WW1, experienced the occupation of Constantinople by the Allied forces and the turmoil which lead to the Kemalist Revolution and the declaration of the Turkish republic. His story is told through his memoirs and personal archive, which he started as a child in the early 20th century and continued throughout his life, including hundreds of never before seen home movies, photographs, sketches, comic strips, newspaper clippings, audio recordings and letters.

The film narrates the struggle of the Greek Nation.

We learn about the story of Paulos and Hlektra.

A man with antennas is taken in by a woman who is one of the first people to treat him as a dear friend, whilst in a world where people are brutally, violently prejudiced against people born with antennas, and the feared army "Antennax".

What he feels, is invisible to others, but to him, it is torment, it is what constantly leads him to a dead end.

Georges Jacotey presents an edited film of a live performance work developed for dgtlfmnsm festival in Dresden.

A man is late for work and his work place punishes him.

Tells the story of the Holy Chicken a magnificent beast, worshiped and exploited, in a tale of love and regret, art and science, Life and Music.

The filmmaker remembers a day with friends in an abandoned factory in Elaionas, an industrial area in Athens. This factory no longer exists. He wonders why all the places where he used to feel free no longer exist in this new world.

Three pre-teenage children in Chania/Crete, remember the lockdown days and the restrictive measures against the spread of Covid-19 between 2020 and 2022. In their own unique and unexpected way, they shed light on the dark moments of anxiety and silence they lived through, they miss the small joys they discovered and now, they cheerfully recapture the thread of life and creativity: theatre, play, music.

Heraclitus was born gifted. He has a high level of intellect and tremendous memory, he is extremely imaginative and emotionally mature. His first year at school was a big disappointment. However, Heraclitus doesn’t give up. He learns to fall and rise again. At the age of six, he has two key weapons: his sense of humor and an adorable sense of audacity.

Greek climate tends to become warmer and drier, with an increased risk of desertification. Heat waves with increased frequency and duration, tropical nights with temperatures exceeding 20 degrees celcius, water scarcity and droughts that create favorable conditions for devastating forest fires have now become the norm.

Two women fight for a man's heart. A television film by Lena Voudouri.

Fοr Alexandros Papadiamantis, a corner of paradise is not the island of Skiathos, which he yearns for, nor the Athens of 1896 which suffocates him. It is the place where the dead travel, where children forgive the father who tried to drown them and where barren women give birth. There, in the hands of the Moslem, a ney is not a ney, but the creaking of the door to Paradise. Α humble room contains the whole world and Saints hold υρ the Acropolis. It is, in other words, every place where a saintiy glance has fallen. His glance.

Rosario Gallardo visit Athens to screen their film “Cumper: the erotic family” and they document their sexy times with friends.

From the Greek mountains to BBC's grand stages, the 35-year-old provocative composer Dimitris Skyllas reveals the secrets of today's music-making. The sacred musician, the party freak, and all the life in-between. A visionary gesture to break the stereotypes of classical music in our fast, pop-consuming universe.

European Music Day in Volos, Greece, June 2010.

A documentary by Michael Kamakas, highlighting the contribution of the Vlach-speaking Greeks during important moments in Greek history, whilst calling attention to the question: How can the word “Vlachos” be used with the derogatory connotation "vlachos" and be intertwined with the uncouth, the peasant, the uncivilized...

An interview with the father of Nikos Sampanis, who was fatally shot during a police pursuit. The film deals with the pain of loss and puts in the spotlight the consequences of prejudices and racism towards a vulnerable social group. This project was created during the Video & Storytelling LAb, designed & implemented by Karpos, Center for Education and Intercultural Communication with the support of UNHCR Greece.

On the verge of the eighth decade of his life, Dimitris Omiridis trains daily, claiming a healthy and fit body. At the same time, he is the owner of a fitness academy in downtown Athens, where friends and students get acquainted with his singular philosophy and body training practice that he calls OMI-DO.

The documentary That Day showcases how the 2021 catastrophic wildfires in Northern Evia interweave with the rejuvenation of the land, and its collective memory with the creation of a music theatre performance that resulted from the Greek National Opera's artistic workshops with members of the local community. A filmic essay on the relationship between the human and non-human world.

12 people narrate their relationship with the olive tree. 6 The contour of the tree emerges from their storytelling.

anthropocentric flows in the city that sounds like a vuvuzela

Documentary Roots depicts the daily life of elderly women living on their own in remote villages of Epirus. The documentary boasts influences from the Japenese Butoh dance, especially in terms of editing. A timeless cinematic approach built around the metaphysics of female existence, as it emerges out of the wilderness. Women, through their particular relationship with time, narrate inner dialogues and stories from the past, along with beloved song lyrics. They are the last living guardians of memory of those particular places.

a coming of age short movie about dreams

A performance by Anosia at Glykerines. A story by Giannis Misouridis.

She is a lonely young woman, spending her nights drinking. He is a man on the run. They meet each other one evening in a bar. It could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship, something more or just a small moment of rest and human connection between the big events of their lives.

A professional memory recorder decides to change the way she is seeing the world.

Anosia on Kifisos

Crete. A bright sunny day. A greek coffee and a fortune-teller.

a film by Yiannis Lianos

This is a small fragment of my documenting of the family-ar reprocessing of decay, the biological squalor and guilted innocence of the way we were.

Film haiku by Tugba Varol

Only 11 year-old children play in this movie. Yet, the film is addressed to adults because of the change that is applied on a standard stereotype: instead of showing the relationship of an adult-teacher and a child-student, the movie focuses on how their roles can often be reversed and how a child can be a great teacher to an adult. This is what happens when children remind us the long forgotten values of childhood.

Walking and singing shadows in the sky.

A mini-series by the creator Eleftheria Karadimou.

Documentary about the National Broadcasting Corporation.

From the music of Argentine composer Gustavo Santaolalla, Greek filmmaker Jacqueline Lentzou crafts a story inspired by the Pleiades, seven sisters who are nymphs who were turned into stars. This short film is part of the 2x25 Project of Film Fest Gent and the World Soundtrack Awards. The project commissioned 25 composers to compose a short piece of music, after which 25 filmmakers made short films that are the ultimate symbioses of music and cinematography, fitting completely within the DNA of the festival. The result: 25 exceptional films where the music inspired the form, narrative and texture.

A classic 80's Greek karate movie with Giannis Bournelis.

A girl catches herself biting more than she can chew.

Timos and Alice, both married, go on their first illicit date. Timos, just before knocking on Alice's door, closes his eyes and envisions their shared future. What decision will he make when he opens them?

Every tear can be shed only once. A cyclic contemplation of the inevitability and irreversibility of loss, bracketed by the sign ||: , which signals musicians to repeat a phrase.

The documentary follows the two brothers in their daily lives, in their relationship with the other children in the institution and their teachers. The film has the form of a short story. The dramaturgical structure of this story of “the minimum” is inspired by the in-depth observation of everyday events and their orchestration into an “other reality” through editing.

Τhe teenage dance team of Neos Voutzas Sports Club continues its courses online, during the Covid-19 pandemic. They turn their rooms into dance halls and at the same time prepare for the exams, in an effort to overcome the trauma of a fire that devastated the area and marked the recent history of Greece.

Six women, from diverse cultural backgrounds, hold onto to calming everyday routines enabling them to cope with an unfamiliar society and an uncertain future in Athens whilst also dreaming about what might be.

A documentary about Markos Meskos, the Greek poet... A journey through the Macedonian landscapes with the old strange place names, where Meskos was born and raised, places he never forgot – even when he left for Athens and Thessaloniki.

Terry is 33 years old. She feels trapped and, after 10 years of living in Athens, she leaves her home, her job, her friends, and her training for MMA matches, and decides to return to her parental home in Parga to make a new start.

A story about the aftermath of ending things

Animation short by Dimitrios Sakkas.

"Three documentary poems" show Syrian refugees landing on Lesbos, Greece in the fall of 2015 while tourists gawk at them and aid workers assist them.

Kostas spends every night in the local music venue. One night he decides to stand up in front of everyone and dance. Closing his eyes he dreams of an oneiric meeting with the woman he loves.

Massage is a documentary about a store that offers free trials on massage beds and the people who meet there.