Response from Berlin

10 years Greek cinema, protagonists, directors, producers and a lively, multilingual audience rushing to the historic Babylon cinema on Rosa Luxeburg Street in the German capital.

This year, as the artistic director of the Berlin Film Festival, Sofia Stavrianidou, tells DW, the theme of the program could be no other than music, Greek music, through films, documentaries and special tributes. As a necessary background music for a party, a celebration for the ten years of cinematic presence in the difficult city of Berlin, the home of Berlinale.

The Berlin Greek Film Festival is no longer needed in Greece but now in Germany. It is the annual appointment for a robust Greek cinema sample of “Various Matter”. Today, March 26th is opening its curtain until Sunday, March 30th.

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Kazantzidis, Papayannopoulou, Creep Records

“Notes on Film” is called this year’s tribute and it has a little bit of it. “It refers to great singers, composers, singers. Within this is’ I am ‘, George Tsemberopoulos’ film about Stelios Kazantzidis. But there is also an amazing documentary about Yiannis Spanos, who has written great songs and music. We will play ‘Happiness (Papayannopoulou)’. And of course a highlight is Nikos Panagiotopoulos’s film “This Night”, one of the best films, in my opinion, of the new Greek cinema with Stamatis Kraounakis’ homonymous song, “says Sofia Stavrianidou shortly before her.

But the program also stands out a documentary on the Creep Records record label, the “Return of the Creeps”, for the flagship company of New Wave and the 80s punk “somewhere between Kypseli, Patisia, Exarchia”.

Tsemberopoulos’s opening, well -off “existence”, however, much talked about in Greece and for the lead role of pop singer Christos Mastoras, premieres on Wednesday in Germany, is sold out and the German distributors of the film sail. But “I have” does not travel to Berlin only thanks to commerciality.

“Stelios Kazantzidis was the man who traveled, who sang the hostel and the dispersion. This was the hero of the foreign, of the popular strata, the pain, the toil. This is how he felt himself, ”says Sofia Stavrianidou, noting that this film coincides with the 65th anniversary of the Greek -German agreement on the employment of male workers in Germany (the first Gastarbaters).

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Ten years of account

Beyond that and this year the program of the Greek Film Festival is rich. Only a few mosaics: Panagiotis Papafragou’s “First Milk”, “Stray Bodies” by Elina Psykou, “Night Announcement” by Reno Charalambidis, but also a documentary on the “Front” theater in Athens by Alkisti Kafisi Kafisi Kafisi Kafisi

To complement the 10th anniversary of the Festival, Sofia Stavrianidou makes her own report on DW and notes: “She started in a completely different way, activist, and now she has taken a completely different form. It is a classic festival, that is, modern … because the modern is classic in my opinion. The years I am on the helm go to the direction we want to go to, that is, to rigorous, independent choices. Independent of anything beyond the criteria of our developers. A festival that offers challenges to our viewers, because this is the mission of a festival. “

As he points out, though Greek, the festival has international standards. “Our goal is to stay high, to have independent choices, to come people, even more, to appreciate these options and likely to boost parallel programs and events.”