The Broadcast (Ekpompi) Greece, 1968

In the manner of Jean Rouch’s Chronique d’un été (1961), the producers of a pop music television show hit the streets to ask women what makes the ideal man. A sharp satire on consumerism and escapism after the military junta known as the Regime of the Colonels seized power the year before.

35mm, b&w, in Greek and English with English subtitles, 22 min. Director: Theo Angelopoulos. Screenwriter: Theo Angelopoulos. With: Theodoros Katsadramis, Lina Triantafillou, Yannis Kostoglou.

Athens, Return to the Acropolis (Athina, epistrofi stin Akropoli) Greece, 1983

Commissioned as an episode for a television series on the cultural capitals of Europe, Theo Angelopoulos structured Athens, Return to the Acropolis as a personal journey through the city where he was born and raised. Incorporating references to his artistic inspirations—the poetry of George Seferis, the music of Manos Hadjidakis, and the paintings of Tsarouchis—Angelopoulos searches for the places he lived as a child amid modern developments that are changing the face of the city.

DCP, color, in Greek and English with English subtitles, 55 min. Director: Theo Angelopoulos. Screenwriter: Theo Angelopoulos. With: Kostas Meleounis, Giorgos Alexiou, Petros Fyssoun.

Reconstruction (Anaparastassi) Greece, 1970

After years of working abroad in Germany, a husband returns to his small rural village only to be murdered by his wife and her lover. Police and media descend on the town to discover the truth of the crime, but in his first feature, Theo Angelopoulos takes a wider view of the investigation. Based on an actual case, the film’s story is only a pretext for Angelopoulos to explore the devastating impact of economic deprivation and changing emigration patterns on an entire region.

35mm, b&w, in Greek with English subtitles, 97 min. Director: Theo Angelopoulos. Screenwriter: Theo Angelopoulos, Stratis Karras, Thanassis Valtinos. With: Toula Stathopoulou, Yannis Totsikas, Thanos Grammenos.

Total runtime: 174 min.

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This film is presented by The UCLA Film & Television Archive and the UCLA Stavros Niarchos Foundation Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture with support from the UCLA Center for European and Russian Studies and with the community partnership of the LAGFF. The retrospective is held under the auspices of the Consulate General of Greece in Los Angeles.