The first big-scale film festival of the year will close on February 19, 2012. The Award Ceremony will be held on February 18, 2012.

From the announced world premieres, Steven Soderberg’s “Haywire”, Billy Bob Thornton’s “Jayne Mansfield’s Car” and Stephen Daldry’s “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” stand out.

Clive Owen, Diane Kruger, Robert Pattinson, Uma Thurman and Michael Fassbender are only some of the many celebrities that will walk the Red Carpet of this year’s Berlinale.

The Greek presence might not be as strong as in previous years but it is definitely there, and particularly noteworthy because of the tense relations between Greece and Germany lately.

Greek director Spiros Stathoulopoulos’ feature film “Meteora” will compete for this year’s Berlinale Bears. “Meteora” is set in Greece, and explores the dynamics of spirituality and human desire, told through the story of a Greek monk and a Russian nun.

Stathopoulos’ film has already premiered at the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes and won the Directors’ Award at the International Thessaloniki Film Festival. The success of the film has resulted in a joint Greek-German co-production.

Another Greek film to be screened at this year’s Berlinale is Angelos Abazoglou’s documentary film “Mustafa’s Sweet Dreams”, which will enter the Generation 14+ Competition for young directors.

In addition, the experimental 8-minute-long film “Austerity Measures” of Guillaume Cailleau and Ben Russell, shot at the infamous Athens neighborhood of Exarchia, was officially chosen by the Berlinale to be screened on February 11-12 at Forum Expanded.

Last but not least, the 62nd Berlinale will hold a tribute screening of “The Weeping Meadow” in memory of the late Theodoros Angelopoulos.

The exhibition opens with an impressionistic space in which video projections and sound combine to capture the way in which Dickens worked. He was an insomniac, in the habit of roaming the streets of London through the night, absorbing material for his stories. With a near-photographic memory, Dickens would plot the tales minutely in his head. His ear for the nuances of speech was also acute, and the voices he heard on his nocturnal rambles are accurately reflected in his writing.

Greek presence in this exhibition is very strong, since three people from Greece are working for its organization and promotion. Elpiniki Psalti is the Display and Exhibitions Project Manager at the Museum of London, Nikos Gogolos is the Registrar of the Museum, and Helen Ganiaris is the Conservation Manager of Objects at the Museum of London in the Department of Conservation and Collection Care.

The exhibition closes with another contemporary commission, inspired by the long journeys through the London night that fired Dickens’s imagination. William Raban’s 19-minute documentary film, ‘The Houseless Shadow’, has as its soundtrack a reading of Dickens’s essay ‘Night Walks’, about the people, places and thoughts the writer encountered as he walked from dusk to dawn through a London night. Dickens’s writing emerges as remarkably contemporary, and the troubles of the city, as documented by Raban, distressingly unchanged.

Dionysis Savvopoulos will be one of the performers, accompanied by musicians Ghiotis Kiourtsoglou, Orestis Plakidis and Vanghelis Karipis.

The idea was born in a workshop for the translation and musical adaptation of some text of the musician’s songs conducted by the Department of Modern Greek Language and Literature, under the supervision of Professor Paola Maria Minucci.

This concert is its natural conclusion: a tribute to the ”singing poet” who in 1968 composed the opera ‘Il giardino del pazzo’ in Milan, and an opportunity to bring people in Rome in contact with the work of a great artist who has accompanied and commentated on nearly fifty years of life and history in Greece.

The revenues of the concert will go to scholarships for students of the Department.

(Source: ANSAmed)

The new distinction of Katsalidas’ work is reflective of his contribution to Greek and Albanian Literature, since he is considered to be one of the few Greek minority poets that can employ both languages to express himself on paper.

In Albania, Mr. Katsalidas is deemed one of the most recognized and most productive figures of Modern Literature. In fact, his overall work has earned him an honorable position in the recently published Encyclopedic Lexicon of the Science Academy of Albania.

The work of Mr. Katsalidas consists of thirty collections of poems, one novel and a short-story collection. He has also translated several Greek works into Albanian, including the complete works of Nobel laureate Odysseas Elytis. For this particular translation Mr. Katsalidas has been honored with the “Silver Pen” Award by the Ministry of Culture of Albania in 2003.

Up until 2011 he served as the Minister for the Office of the Prime Minister of Albania, in matters relating to Human Rights and Minorities. He has also served for many years as a cultural attaché of the Embassy of Albania to Athens.

Mr. Katsalidas is 63 years old and currently works and lives in Athens.

Therefore, scientists can be optimistic that better understanding of the genetic background of strokes can lead to more effective and improved treatments, in addition to methods for early diagnosis and prevention. Yet, time-wise, it is not possible to determine when this will happen.

Researchers from Britain, the United States, Australia and Europe, among them Greek geneticist, Panos Deloukas, published their study in “Nature Genetics”, having performed thousands of case-studies of stroke patients. The scientists were able to identify an association between the large vessel ischemic stroke and a genetic variation of the HDAC9 gene.

The HDAC9 gene produces a protein involved in the formation of muscle tissue and the development of the heart, and the research associates it with susceptibility to ischemic stroke. Therefore people who inherit two copies of the variant gene, one from their mother and one from their father, are exposed to twice the risk of ischemic stroke, compared to those with no copies of the gene variant.

The team of scientists from the University of Oxford used a new genetic analysis technique, allowing them to compare the genomes of 10.000 stroke patients and 40.000 people who never had a stroke. Greek geneticist Dr. Panos Deloukas, from the British “Wellcome Trust Sanger” institute, who specializes in genetics and the genetic study of coronary and artery disease, participated in the studies.

Dr. Panos Deloukas graduated with a a degree in Chemistry from the Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki, Greece in 1986 and moved on to obtain a Masters in Microbiology from University Paris 7. He received his PhD from the Biozentrum University of Basel, Switzerland in 1991 for work on the construction and use of Yeast Artificial Chromosome clone banks of the human genome. He then spent two years at Hoffmann-La Roche, a Swiss global health-care company, as postdoctoral fellow working on vitamin D receptor, and joined the “Wellcome Trust Sanger” institute in 1994.

(Source: http://www.iatropedia.com)

With his statement, Mr. Erdem tried to justify and support the politics conducted by the government for the past few years.

“These people used to live here, in Istanbul, and they left. Now they wish to come back here to Turkey and this is because AKP is in office. Because here all citizens are equal” said Mr. Erdem, commenting on the wish of hundreds of Greeks to receive Turkish citizenship.

In support of his claim, Mr. Erdem also noted that Turkish success in the fields of economy and the rapid development of the “Turkish miracle” in the fields of health, diplomacy and social politics “have turned Turkey into an international role model country”.

In particular, the announcement refers to the fact that a Byzantine cemetery in Istanbul’s Çatalca district has been repeatedly plundered for years, due to a lack of proper protection of the monument on behalf of the Turkish authorities.

A similar case that caused outrage among Greeks was the construction of a five-star hotel in the Sultanahmet district of Istanbul, amid the ruins of an ancient Byzantine palace.

Moreover, the Hagia Sophia Church has been converted into a mosque, a fact that caused deep concern to the Orthodox community in Greece.

Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs emphasizes that cultural monuments should be preserved and protected regardless of the national or religious identity that they carry.

Finally, the Greek Ministry concludes that the Turkish authorities should protect and preserve the monuments in order to promote them in the region.

The film titled ‘Like Stone Lions at Nightfall’ (original title: Comme des lions de pierre à l’entrée de la nuit) is constructed in three ceaselessly intertwined literary and pictorial spaces.

The story of the film dates back to 1947 and 1951 when the Greek government interned around 80,000 soldiers and civilians (men, women and children) for “communist activity”. They were forced to go through ’re-education programmes’ in order to get back “on the right track”, guided by the ideology of the extreme right-wing nationalist King Paul.

Numerous prisoners, including the famous poet Yannis Ritsos, wrote texts there, “poetry” that they buried inside bottles and managed to bring home from the camp. These texts fuel images of this barbaric laboratory which was set up specifically in order to facilitate the “mental reprogramming” of members of the communist resistance.

They will be brought together in a written script depicting the life and survival of this prison colony and the brain-washing techniques used there. This film will focus on the insight of these poems and images of the rocky ruins of what is left of the camp, recorded like “cinematic archaeological excavations”.

In addition to the poetic backbone of the film, there will be significant, highly aesthetic material – etchings, survivors’ accounts on the voice-over, military propaganda photos – which will be worked in to the project using sound and video techniques borrowed from experimental cinema.

The film is a co-production of Switzerland, Greece and France.

The traditional vasilopita cutting event was attended by the newly enthroned Greek-Orthodox Metropolitan of Austria and Exarch of Hungary and Mid-Europe, Arsenios, the Chargé d’affaires of the Republic of Cyprus, Poli Ioannou, the Greek Consul to Vienna, Dimitris Daskalakis, the Greek-born municipal counselor and member of the Federal State Parliament of Vienna, Hanes Harvanek, many diplomatic representatives from Greece and Cyprus, as well as many Cypriots and Greeks living in Vienna and Austrian friends of the two countries.

In his greeting speech, the President of the Cypriot Cultural Centre and renowned baritone Kiros Patsalidis paid tribute to the deceased historic figure of the Greek-Orthodox church of Austria, Metropolitan Michael. He also referred to the challenge Cyprus must face by taking up the next rotating presidency of the Council of the EU. Mr. Patsalidis pointed out that the Greek-Cypriots will never forget the occupied lands and the occupation, wishing at the same time that 2012 may be the year to bring the final and much desired solution to the Cyprus Problem, so that Cyprus can become a united and peaceful country.

Mrs. Poli Ioannou has also characterized Cyprus’ rotating presidency of the Council of the EU as a “historic event” and stressed that it is a matter of national pride to exercise the 6 month presidency with absolute dignity.

Mr. Daskalakis on his part commented on the actions and initiatives taken by the Cypriot Cultural Centre in promoting Hellenism in Vienna, and highlighted the need to fight the Greek debt crisis through unity and joint efforts.

The newly elected Metropolitan Arsenios also made reference to the Cyprus Problem and expressed his hopes and optimism that the Cyprus presidency will be a success story.

The event included a music programme with parts from well-known opera works and Greek and Austrian operettas.

According to recent data, 85% of the passengers of Ryanair Airlines travelling through Thessaloniki end up in Halkidiki, which is the gateway to Mt Athos.

The discussion for the promotional campaign of Mt. Athos was held on the occasion of the International Tourism Exhibition ‘Salon Des Vacances’ in Brussels, where Greek presence was very strong.

At the Greek stand of the exhibition was presented Mt. Athos, the place of the so called Holy Mountain including 20 monasteries of Eastern Orthodox nations (mostly Greek but also Bulgarian, Russian, Serbian, and Georgian) dating back to the early Middle Ages.

Even though only men are allowed as visitors to the site of the monasteries, the Greek tourism organizations have advertised the area adjacent to the Holy Mountain as a place suitable for women as well.

People in Brussels seemed to become interested in this emerging tourist destination, which can become an alternative competitive destination for vacations.