Sixth Greek Film Festival in London Surpasses Expectations

The artistic Director of the Festival, Christos Prosilis said that the Greek Film Festival in London is improving over the years. Especially this year, the publics response surpassed any expectation of both screenings on both days and through the Internet. He pointed out that films of high quality helped this fact, adding that most of those were presented in Great Britain for the first time and some globally.

This year the festival takes place at Westbourne Studios, close to the most artistic district of London, Portobello. In total, there are a diverse selection of 69 films, participating as fiction and short films, documentaries, experimental films, animation films and video art.

The Greek film “The 10th day” of Vasilis Mazomenos is included between the following fiction films. “A Night in Athens” by Dimitris Arvanitis, “Blood ” Diamantis Caranastassi , “The Return of Lazarus ‘ Alexandrou Konstantara and “The Telemachy” of Alexander Nali.

In the midst of the big screenings, the following films were also showcased: “Michigan – Beauties and Difficulties ” of Kimon Tsakiris, “Welcome to the Show” by Paul Sidiropoulos, Kostas Pliakou and Alexis Psarrou; “One Step Ahead ” by Dimitris Athiridis, and the ” Imbros : the Memory and Forgetting ” by Irini Sarioglou and Panos Angelopoulos . At the same time, there are 19 scenarios in the competition section.

The Festival accepts entries from Greek artists from around the world as well as by foreigners whose works have Greek interest. This is an independent initiative which works with international companies, and organizations. The organizers are submitting that the festival remains an independent, militant and creative festival. It has also been embraced by the difficult British audience for the 6th consecutive year. The big goal of this festival is to become the international meeting point for contemporary Greek films from around the world.

The head of the festival says, that the Greek Film Festival in London creates appropriate conditions for promoting contemporary Greek artists, with online parallel events throughout the year. It opens opportunities networking and cooperation promoting new technologies, combining the good old movies with new features offered by the development of our times.

This year for the first time the entrance is free to the public for all viewings. The purpose of this decision, as the organizers explained, was for even more British movie enthusiasts to attend, in order to garner Greek productions to the general public in Britain.

Prosylis also noted the importance of promotion of Greek culture abroad, and the difficulties faced by such efforts due to the economic crisis. Although the festival is described as one of the most important actions of cultural diplomacy for Greece in Great Britain, it is unfortunately not supported by Greek State. Due to the economic crisis, the promotion of Greek culture abroad may be the only way to change the image into positive.

The Festival opened its doors last week and the events will be completed Friday, October 18, with a night of Odysseus Award, Where authors and artists will be awarded for the best films of the festival . Prosylis declared that the winning projects will be presented from December 4 -8, at the Foundation of Michalis Kakoyiannis in Athens.