Thursday, January 26, 2012



World-acclaimed director Theodore (Theo) Angelopoulos died last Tuesday at the age of 76, after being seriously injured in a traffic accident and while filming in Drapetsona, near Pireaus. Winner of several international film awards, Angelopoulos had started shooting his latest film, The Other Sea, earlier this month.
Angelopoulos was born in Athens in 1935. He studied Law at the Athens University, and at the beginning of the ‘60s he moved to France where he followed courses in ethnography and studied film at the Institute of Advanced Cinematographic Studies in Paris. Upon returning to Greece, he initially worked as a film critic and in 1970 he completed his first feature film Anaparastassi(Reconstruction).
His next three films make up a trilogy on the history of contemporary Greece:Meres tou ’36 (Days of '36, 1972), O Thiassos (Travelling Players, 1975) and Oi Kynighoi (The Hunters, 1977), followeed by Megalexandros in 1980. With these films some of the thematic and stylistic constants of Angelopoulos' cinema were established - the weight of history, a clinical examination of power, a Brechtian theatricality, wherein the individual has no importance with respect to the group, a rejection of conventional narration in favour of an intentionally broken one, in which stationary cameras and sequence-length shots create an alternative sense of time.
Taxidi sta Kithira (Voyage to Cythera), in 1984, won the Cannes Festival International Critics’ Award for best screenplay, followed by O Melissokomos(The Beekeeper), in 1986, starring Marcello Mastroianni. With Topio stin Omichli (Landscape in the Mist) in 1988 he won the Silver Lion at the Venice Mostra.
The Culture and Tourism ministry and the Thessaloniki Cinema Festival will establish an International "Theodoros Angelopoulos" Award in memory of the Greek film director, according to an announcement by the ministry. The award will be given every November in the framework of the Thessaloniki International Film Festival.
The Embassy of Greece and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, have presented a Tribute to Angelopoulos with the title: “Theo Angelopoulos: History and Myths” in 2006 and the PANORAMA OF GREEK CINEMA will continue the screening of his films in the future. (Last screening was: “Ulysses’ Gaze”).

News of Angelopoulos' death has been publicized in various international newspapers. Click the below links to read more about this prolific and inspiring Greek director:
New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/movies/theo-angelopoulos-greek-film-director-dies-at-76.html












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