FILM FESTIVAL 2012 BREAKS ATTENDANCE RECORD

The sixth annual New York City Greek Film Festival, which ran from October 6 through 17, broke all previous attendance records with 3,804 admissions. “Most of the films this year played at or near capacity,” said festival manager Stamatis Ghikas. “We also noticed an increase in young and non-Greek viewers, all of which is tremendously gratifying.” “We are very pleased by the turnout this year,” added James DeMetro, festival director. “The films were high quality, and people wanted to see them. So many told me how much they enjoyed the films and how grateful they were for the opportunity to see Greek movies. For the most part, people were happy with what they had seen.” This year’s festival presented twelve films from Greece, some of them shown for the first time in the U.S. Included among the selections were: ALPS, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos; Burning Heads (To Gala), Giorgos Siougas; Christmas Tango (To Tango Ton Christougennon), Nikos Koutelidakis; City of Children (I Poli Ton Paidion), Yorgos Gkikapeppas; God Loves Caviar (O Theos Agapaei To Haviari), Iannis Smaragdis; Magic Hour, Kostas Kapakas; Smyrna: The Destruction of A Cosmopolitan City, 1900-1922, Maria Iliou; Two Men And A Baby (Mia Fora Kai Ena Moro), Nikos Zapatinas; Unfair World (Adikos Kosmos), Filippos Tsitsos; Wasted Youth, Argyris Papadimitropoulos and Jan Vogel; 100, Gerasimos Rigas; and The Fiend of Athens (O Drakos), the 1956 classic directed by Nikos Koundouros. Also shown was the American film Fred Won’t Move Out, by Greek American director Richard Ledes. The festival also paid tribute to the late Theo Angelopoulos with a lecture with film excerpts by Prof. Andrew Horton of the University of Oklahoma. Prof. Horton, who was a personal friend of Angelopoulos, has written extensively

The on – line newsletter of the New York City Greek Film Festival #4 – December, 2012

on the director’s work. Screenings were held at the Museum of the Moving Image, the legendary Paris Theater, the NYIT Auditorium on Broadway, and Cinema Village, New York City’s great indie theater. The festival was presented under the auspices of the Hellenic American Chamber of Commerce, the Hellenic

American Cultural Foundation, and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation. “We are grateful to the filmmakers of Greece for their efforts to make movies under the especially difficult conditions they face today,” DeMetro added. “They remain undaunted and continue to make quality films worthy of attention.”

By Penelope Karageorge Let’s tell it like it is. For five years, the New York Greek Film Festival – an event fueled by dedication and love – with minimal financial backing – often struggled to fill theatres. But in 2012, Greek Americans and film lovers were fighting to get into the films. The festival went boffo with sold-out houses. Greek films are not slick. Even when struggling to go Hollywood, raw emotion tends to trump easy sentimentality. We love trying to figure it out. What’s it about? Why did he say that? Audiences are still debating the conclusion of the popular and romantic Christmas Tango. Smyrna: The Destruction of A Cosmopolitan City, 1900-1922 opened the festival in Manhattan, packing the prestigious Paris Theater for two performances. Stunned by the heart-breaking brilliance of Smyrna, we wonder how director Maria Iliou managed to assemble the amazing footage for her documentary. The festival offered winning comedies, including two “road” stories. In Two Men and a Baby, directed by Nikos Zapatinas, an unhappy man finds his life changed when he goes on the road with Baby Persephone and her neer do well guardian. Magic Hour, written and directed by Kostas Kapakas, gave Renos

Haralambidis, himself an actor and a director, the chance to make a come-back. His last two films were disappointments, but this proved a delight, about a cuckolded husband and failed filmmaker on an improbable odyssey. Thumbs up to Wasted Youth. Argyris Papadimitropoulos and Jan Vogel created this important film for $4,000. It’s based on the real-life incident about the young man accidentally shot by the Athens police. We happen to have a fatal attraction for the avant garde, director Yorgos Lanthimos in particular. He followed up his famous Dogtooth with the mind-bending film Alps. Although the characters in this mordant tale assume the roles of dead relatives for a price, the film’s not really about loss and grief. It’s more about the tenuous business of life. City of Children, from director Yorgos Gkikapeppas closed the festival, and it was a stunner. Four stories are played out at a high pitch of emotion – perhaps too high. But we accepted the overacting because of the film’s powerful portrayal of the changing, dystopian but ever hopeful Greek world. And there was so much more to appreciate. Every film represented a unique director’s view of art and life. All of the films were special, created with passion and talent. We can’t wait to see next year’s picks.

LIGHTS! CAMERAS! ACTION! SUCCESS! Greek Films Play to Sell-out Audiences

Alps, Burning Heads, Christmas Tango, City of Children, The Fiend of Athens, Fred Won’t Move Out

God Loves Caviar, Two Men and a Baby, Smyrna: Magic Hour, Unfair World, Wasted Youth, 100

GREEKS TURN OUT FOR ‘CAVIAR’ God Loves Caviar (O Theos Agapaei To Haviari), a resounding hit at this year’s New York City Greek Film Festival, is playing to full houses during its commercial run in Greece. Now into the second month of its release, the film has earned over $3 million to date, making it the year’s highest-grossing domestic film. The success is all the more impressive considering the negative impact that the economic crisis has had on film grosses in Greece. Last year box office receipts fell about a third over the previous year and are expected to take a further 20% hit this year. Directed by Yannis Smaragdis and featuring an international cast including Catherine Deneuve, John Cleese, Sebastian Koch and Lakis Lazopoulos, God Loves Caviar was budgeted at 6.5million Euros, making it the most expensive Greek film

ever. It will depend on foreign sales to turn a profit. The film tells the epic story of Ioannis Varvakis (1745-1825) who sided with the Russians in their 1768 war against the Turks, befriended Catherine the Great, and made a fortune selling caviar, only to give it all away to help the Greeks fight the Ottoman empire. Clearly, the story of Varvakis has struck a chord with Greek viewers who in these difficult times, perhaps more than ever before, need a national hero they can look up to. “If each of us followed Varvakis’s example, Greece today would definitely be different,” Smaragdis has said. Festival benefactor Nikos Mouyiaris spoke to a reporter from Antenna Satellite at the end of the film’s screening at the Museum of the Moving Image. “I admit to being touched by the film,” he said, no doubt expressing what many others in the audience felt.”This is the story of a man who gave everything he had to help shape his country after 400 years of enslavement. I found the man’s selflessness very moving.”

For the past decade, the Center for Byzantine & Modern Greek Studies of Queens College (CUNY) and the University of Michigan have been compiling a guide to all American films with Greek American characters. The project is headed by Dan Georgakas but has involved dozens of scholars. Approximately 125 films that deal with Greek Americans have been located so far. Each has been given a brief synopsis with production credits. The list of films , which is updated annually, can be accessed free of charge at: lsa.umich.edu/modgreek/windowtogreekculture/ cultureandmedia The filmography examines how mainstream Americans have perceived Greek Americans at any given historical moment during a century of filmmaking. Among the many non-Greek Hollywood stars who have played Greek American characters are Cary Grant, Al Pacino, Gene Kelley, Matthew Broderick, Lon Chaney Jr., Philip Seymour Hoffmann, John Malkovich, Robert Wagner, Anthony Quinn, and Jay Leno. “How American films depict Greek Americans tells us more about American culture than about Greek Americans,” said Boy Eating the Bird’s Food (To Agori Troei To Fagito Tou Pouliou), a somber and intense new film from Greece , is catching the attention of festival audiences and critics worldwide, and its director, Ektoras Lygizos, is being hailed as the new filmmaker to join Yorgos Lanthimos and Athena Rachel Tsangari at the forefront of the current Greek new wave. The film is an intimate character study of Yorgos, a haunted young man estranged from friends and family and living on the brink of starvation in today’s Athens. When not eating the seeds he feeds his pet canary, he pilfers food from his elderly neighbor and roams the streets foraging scraps of food from the garbage. With Greece in economic and political turmoil, the film is being seen as a sobering commentary on the current state of the country. Lygizos calls it “a kind of psychological case study of the crisis.” The film is loosely based on Hunger, an 1890 novel by Knut Hamsun, but critics have also been finding literary parallels to

Georgakas. “This is a result of the circumstances that movies reflect contemporary cultural assumptions. The general rule is that screenwriters, directors, cinematographers, and actors do not have any special knowledge of Greek America. They can only reproduce the dominant cultural stereotypes of their times. Filmmakers who consciously attempt to reshape or challenge established perceptions are rare.” The earliest film listed is a 1922 silent film, Napatia, The Greek Singer, directed by Theodore Walton. The plot involves a fireman, played by Francis X. Bushman, who rescues the enticing Greek American Napatia from her cruel foster father. Among the more recent films listed is Charlie Wilson’s War, directed by Mike Nichols and released in 2007. Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Gust Avrakotos, a CIA maverick involved in aiding Afghan rebels. Though he expresses pride in his heritage, there is little Greek American in Avrakotos though the character does suggest a Greek American presence in intelligence and foreign intrigue not previously seen in American film.

Yiannis Pappadopoulos Dostoevsky and Camus, and the alienated hero has been termed Bresson-like. Yiannis Papadopoulos, who stars as Yorgos, earned a special jury mention when the film debuted earlier this year at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. He was named best actor at the Thessaloniki Film Festival last month, and the film won the coveted FIPRESCI International Critics prize as the best Greek film in the festival.

PROJECT EXAMINES GREEK AMERICAN IMAGES IN HOLLYWOOD FILMS

NEW GREEK FILM DRAWING WORLD-WIDE ATTENTION

DIMITRA ARLISS (1932-2012) By Dan Georgakas Greek American stage and screen actress Dimitra Arliss , who died earlier this year from complications of a stroke, achieved her greatest public visibility playing opposite Robert Redford as the assassin Loretta Salino in The Sting (1973). Her numerous roles in Hollywood films included Greek characters in A Perfect Couple (1971) and Eleni (1985). Arliss’s many appearances on stage and on television, included roles in Quincy, Dallas, Kojak, and Rich Man, Poor Man. She also did voice-overs for the animated version of The Spider-Man. I met Dimitra in the early 1970s when I was doing a story on Greeks of Hollywood for the now defunct Greek Accent. Although she only knew me from my writing, Dimitra kindly introduced me to numerous Greeks in Hollywood. This was the onset of a long friendship with repeated meetings in New York, Los Angeles, and Thessaloniki. I especially liked hanging out with her in New York when she came to see the latest plays. At these encounters she humorously commented on the latest off-the-record Hollywood doings. She always spoke candidly about herself as well. She felt that although she had won considerable respect as an actor, she had never fulfilled her possibilities in cinema due to her hubris. After her sensational performance in The Sting, she had turned down major supporting roles in favor of starring roles that never developed as she had imagined. Dimitra served on various Academy Award committees and was a voting member of the Academy. At Greek film festivals, when Dimitra found a film she thought worthy of world class attention, she shared her expertise with the filmmakers on how best to present their work in America. She was often

VIGGO MORTENSEN FILMING IN GREECE The Two Faces of January, based on a 1964 novel by Patricia Highsmith, is being filmed in Athens and Crete. The director is Hossein Amini. The psychological drama tells the story of a man who accidentally kills a private detective investigating him, becoming a fugitive from international police. This is the first film directing assignment for Amini, an Oscar-nominated screenwriter, responsible for such films as Drive, Snow White and The Huntsman, and The Wings of the Dove. The film has taken advantage of the Greek government’s newly-relaxed policy that allows filming at archeological sites in a bid to lure production companies to film in Greece.

Dimitra Arliss

frustrated when Greek filmmakers insisted on doing things their own way, which invariably disqualified them on technical grounds. Her frustration, however, did not deter her from continuing to offer her assistance whenever asked. A Greek filmmaker who heeded her counsel was Spiro Taraviras, writer and director of Buzz, a feature-length documentary on A. I. Bezzzerides, the well-known Armenian-Greek scriptwriter. As a result, Buzz was given a Screen Writers Guild testimonial screening and obtained American distribution. Film archives will preserve Dimitra Arliss’ cinema image, but my personal image of her is that of a woman with a genuine sense of ethnic pride, what the Greeks term philotimo. Not enough Greek celebrities share her sense of community.

Viggo Mortensen and Kirsten Dunst at the Parthenon

NYCGFF ON YOU TUBE Watch interviews with directors and catch festival-related news items on the festival’s You Tube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/NYCGreekFilmFestival

SPECIAL THANKS TO THE DIRECTORS WHO ATTENTED FESTIVAL SCREENINGS TO PRESENT THEIR FILMS AND MEET THE AUDIENCES

Maria Iliou, Richard Ledes, and Gerasimos Rigas

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