“Opera of the Summer” / “Opera Lata” (15th September 2012) – Participation of the Press Office with the film “Diolkos”

September 15th, 2012,
From 15.30  to 01.00
Park around the Ujazdowski Castle

Open-air music and film evening

Summer Opera is an interdisciplinary outdoor event, entirely devoted to ‘the joy of music’ in a broad perspective: to create music, to listen to it, to understand it, to appreciate it and to dance on it.
Summer Opera is the follow-up of last year’s “Awakening of the summer” which was organized by the network of national institutes for culture and embassies in Warsaw: “EUNIC Warszawa” and CCA Zamek Ujazdowski and which brought 3000 persons to the castle on a warm midsummer night.
This year, once again, the gracious environment of the Castle will transform into a lively European boulevard and the keyword is ‘Opera’. Opera’ in the sense of a spectacular synthesis of arts; combining various elements, often surprising and sometimes disturbing, but always fascinating. The main role in the Summer Opera will be played by cinematography. 3 screens will show documentaries devoted to musicians, music and instruments. There will be animation- and feature films as well as music videos from several European countries and even a silent film. Feel like doing it? There will be a voice-workshop, lessons in Irish dancing, you can make music on what needs to be recycled and – of course – the opera brings also a music workshop for children and parents. Workshops are dedicated to everyone: those talented and those who cannot sing or play.
An Opera is not an Opera without a choir and an orchestra! Therefore on stage: Małe Instrumenty (Poland), Alfredo Costa Monteiro (Portugal) and Anthony Chorale (The Netherlands) and in the late hours: DJ Disco DJ Partizanti (Poland) and DJ PM Misha (Portugal).
For the hungry and thirsty the opera will serve Hungarian, Portuguese and Czech delights and more, more, more!
The opera brings thunder and lightning, but in case the weather is not in harmony with the opera, we will go inside. 
Workshops are open for everyone. No registration needed.
Detailed information on the websites of the organizers and on facebook.

Organizers:

EUNIC Warszawa (European Union National Institutes for Culture): Embassy of Greece – Press Office, Delegation Wallonie-Brussels (Embassy of Belgium), Embassy of Ireland, Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Austrian Cultural Forum, Czech Center, Danish Cultural Institute, Instituto Camões, Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Goethe Institute, Bulgarian Cultural Institute, Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, Romanian Cultural Institute, the Hungarian Cultural Institute in Warsaw
and:
Center for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle / KINO.LAB
Admission Free

The Press Office of the Greek Embassy invites you to the screening of the film “Diolkos”, at 18.30 in KINO.LAB.

A movie for the Diolkos of Corinth

1.500 years since the construction and use of the Corinthian Diolkos, the Technical Chamber of Greece in collaboration with the Society for the Study of Ancient Greek Technology, created a movie presenting one of the greatest innovations of technical civilization of Ancient Greece.
The 22 min. film, created with the use of 3D animations, represents one of the most important technological monuments of Greek civilization, Diolkos: an overland route for the transfer of ships between the Saronic and Corinthian gulfs along the Isthmus (Corinth), when there was no strait. The film offers many other technical details, but also extensive scenes of marine life in antiquity: gaming, visit at the Temple of Poseidon, fun time in a pub, the construction of Hydraulis (hydraulic, water music instrument) and an emotional confrontation.

Farewell to Filmmaker Michael Cacoyannis

Internationally acclaimed film director, screenwriter and producer Michael Cacoyannis died yesterday, at 89.
The director of the award-winning films Zorba the Greek and Stella, Michael Cacoyannis was nominated five times for an Academy Award (Oscar), receiving the Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Film nominations for Zorba the Greek and two nominations in the Foreign Language Film category for Electra and Iphigenia.
Most of his work is rooted in classical texts, particularly those of the Greek tragedian Euripides.
A pioneer of post-war Greek cinema and director of international hits, Cacoyannis refused a career in Hollywood, opting for ‘quality’ theater. In 2003, he founded the Michael Cacoyannis Foundation for the study and support of the film and theater arts.
You Tube: Awarded films: Stella (1954) with English subtitles & Zorba the Greek (1964) & The girl in black (1956) [VIDEO
(GREEK NEWS AGENDA)

Farewell to a great philhellene

Jacqueline de Romilly, a distinguished French academic and great philhellene, died on December 18 at the age of 97. De Romilly was a classical scholar who specialised in the civilisation and language of ancient Greece, and had been the second woman to be elected member of the prestigious French Academy.
In 1995, the Greek state bestowed honorary Greek Citizenship upon De Romilly. In 2000, she was named ambassador of Hellenism, and became a foreign guest member of the Athens Academy. As a scholar, she was known for her works on ancient Greek literature, and thought, especially on the historian Thucydides and Pericles’ Classical Athens.
“The life and work of Jacqueline de Romilly are bathed in the light that comes from the sources of the highest civilisation – the Greek civilisation, the flame of which lived with her till her last breath” said French President Nicolas Sarkozy, while Prime Minister George Papandreou praised de Romilly for honouring Greek thought and for devoting herself to the promotion of Greek literature and arts.
You Tube: Jacqueline de Romilly – La Vigie Grecque
(GREEK NEWS AGENDA)

2010 Thessaloniki Film Festival

The 2010 Thessaloniki Film Festival came to an end, with the International Jury bestowing this year’s awards at the Olympion Theatre on Saturday.  The film Periferic/Outbound by Romanian director Bogdan George Apetri was the big winner, receiving the Golden Alexander (Best Feature Film), the best actress award for Ana Ularu’s performance and the Greek Film Critics Association Award. Athena Rachel Tsangaris’s Attenberg got the Silver Alexander (Special Jury) award. The Bronze Alexander, given for the first time this year, went to Jean Gentil by Laura Amelia Guzman and Israel Gardenias.  Τhe Best Director Award was received by another Romanian director, Marian Crisan for his film Morgen, which was also chosen as best film by the International Federation of Film Critics Jury (FIPRESCI). In the Greek section, the FIPRESCI award went to Apnea by Aris Balafoukas.
(GREEK NEWS AGENDA)

Cacoyannis Foundation: A new Cultural Centre

(GREEK NEWS AGENDA) President of the Hellenic Republic Karolos Papoulias and Cyprus President Demetris Christofias officially inaugurated on March 9, the “Michael Cacoyannis Foundation,” housed in an Athens downtown building.
The Foundation’s building is designed to serve as a cultural centre for performing arts and is meant to preserve Cacoyannis oeuvre for future generation.
The official inauguration is to be followed by a series of events, including a costume and photography exhibition from Cacoyannis’s work for the cinema, opera and theatre.
Cypriot-born Michael Cacoyannis is the director of world acclaimed films, among which Stella, Electra, Zorba the Greek and The Trojan Women. 
Athens News (5.3.2010) Cacoyannis’ cultural centre

The Impact of Byzantium

(GREEK NEWS AGENDA)   The 18th Runciman Lecture was delivered on February 5, at King’s College London by distinguished Professor Judith Herrin, whose latest book “Byzantium: the Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire” has been recently translated into Greek. Under the title “We are all children of Byzantium”, Professor Herrin traced, during her lecture, some of the less obvious ways in which Byzantium continues to have an impact on world civilization today.  Noting that thanks to the efforts of a multitude of scholars -as well as events such as the ongoing exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts “Byzantium 330-1453“- many of the negative stereotypes traditionally associated with Byzantium are being countered by substantive demonstrations of what the empire achieved in its millennial history, she drew attention to the “larger family” of “real, symbolic and imagined children of Byzantium” that enriches our perception of the great civilization. Kathimerini daily (7/2/09): “We are all the children of Byzantium” (abridged version of Professor Herrin’s lecture) 

Greece at the International Animated Film Festival in Belgrade

Greek Animation and Animators, creators from the wider audiovisual sector will be honored in Belgrade, by the Balkanima, International Animated Film Festival, that will take place in Belgrade from 7th to 11th of October 2008. For the benefit of the festival and the best possible presentation of our country in Serbia, the Hellenic Audiovisual Institute, the European Animation Centre and the Athens School of Fine Arts, have been united in one team and selected a series of various artistic activities in the context of the Serbian capital is Festival, that are targeting to reveal the Greek contemporary Visual Arts, through animation art, painting, sculpture, graffiti, video art, photography and music. Through this creative framework of all the above forms of art, Greek artists will present their propositions and will attempt artistic interventions in the city, with collaboration from their Serbian associates.

Retrieved Artefacts @ New Acropolis Museum

(GREEK NEWS AGENDA)   Some 75 artefacts, including the magnificent 6th-century vessel known as the Euphronios crater, will be presented at an exhibition which will be inaugurated at the New Acropolis Museum (www.newacropolismuseum.gr) in September. The artefacts present a special interest because they constitute artefacts of Greek and Roman origin that were found on Italian soil, and were subsequently illicitly exported abroad. Eventually, American museums (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles) returned the artefacts to Italy and were later displayed in Rome as part of the “Nostoi: Capolavori ritrovati” (Greek for ‘Homecomings’: Italian for recovered masterpieces) in the beginning of 2008. The same exhibition – the retrieved artefacts – will be hosted by the New Acropolis Museum. The opening is scheduled for September 23 and the exhibition will run until the end of 2008. Together with the artefacts offered by Italy, the exhibition will also comprise artefacts displayed in foreign museums and private collections which have recently returned to Greece permanently. The New York Times – Arts: Nostoi: Recovered Masterpieces

Archaeological Films in Athens

(GREEK NEWS AGENDA)   The 7th International Meeting of Archaeological Film of the Mediterranean Area  took place in Athens until May 11. The event was organised by the non-profit association “Agon,” a founding member of the European Federation of Archaeology and Patrimony Film Festivals, in collaboration with the “Archaeology and Arts” magazine.