Alexander the Great (O Megalexandros) Greece, 1980 Theo Angelopoulos insisted that Alexander the Great was his “most simple film” to date for its linear structure, beginning on New Year’s Eve 1900 and proceeding from there. The film’s straightforward chronology, however, belies the complex interplay of Greek Orthodox and Byzantine liturgy, music, and ritual that Angelopoulos...
The Hunters (I Kynighi) Greece, 1977 When a hunting party finds the body of a communist partisan perfectly preserved in the snow, they carry it back to their lakeside lodge to open a formal inquest. Representatives of the conservative elite—politicians, military officers, businessmen, media figures—who have gathered to celebrate New Year’s Eve 1977, they are...
In commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Catastrophe of Smyrna, this evening event includes a discussion about historical aspects and music of Asia Minor played by an ensemble led by oud-player Dimitri Mahlis.
The Weeping Meadow (To Livadi pou Dakryzei) Greece, 2004 A family history told in wide shot, The Weeping Meadow spans the turbulent decades between 1919 and the end of the Greek Civil War in 1949 as they buffet the lives of Eleni (Alexandra Aidini) and her adoptive brother and lover Alexis (Nikos Poursanidis). Taken in...
In this lecture, part of the Hellenic Together 4.0 series held in collaboration with the Benaki Museum in Athens, exhibition curator Evita Arapoglou leads us through "Asia Minor Hellenism: Heyday - Catastrophe - Displacement - Rebirth." This program is supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF). About the Exhibit Visitors to the exhibition begin their...
This panel brings together distinguished scholars of Greek cinema to discuss the Greek director's enduring contributions to a global cinema of time, history, and social crisis. Our speakers will discuss various aspects of Angelopoulos’s contemporaneity, from the global impact of his distinctive filmic style and the philosophical dimensions of his visual language to the cinematic...
The Dust of Time Greece/Italy/Germany/Russia, 2008 In a direct reference to Ulysses’ Gaze, The Dust of Time follows a filmmaker named A (here played by Willem Dafoe) on a journey to make a film about his parents. Moving between past and present, memory and history, fiction and reality, the film spans the second half of...
Kouvenda: Hellenic Conversations is a bi-weekly discussion forum where members of our community discuss in Greek topics of Hellenic interest. For further information, contact Dr. Simos Zenios (szenios@humnet.ucla.edu).
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...
Under the fog of war during World War 1, the genocide of the Greeks was carried out at the hands of the Ottoman and Nationalist Turks. This Genocide became the model for all Genocides to follow, Nearly a million Greeks were killed, and millions more were uprooted as part of the Ottoman and Nationalist Turks'...
Film screening and discussion with filmmaker Mary Zournazi. My Rembetika Blues is a film about the power of music and what makes us human. Rembetika music or the Greek blues is a music of the streets and a music of refugees. The film explores the heart and soul of Rembetika music through peoples’ stories of...
Ulysses' Gaze (To Vlemma tou Odissea) Greece, 1995 Theo Angelopoulos once confessed to an interviewer, “I would like to believe the world will be saved by the cinema.” Ulysses’ Gaze gives this hope form as a Greek filmmaker known as A (Harvey Keitel) becomes obsessed with finding lost reels of film shot by the Manaki...