12th Symi Symposium: Progressive Governance

(GREEK NEWS AGENDA)  The 12th annual Symi Symposium is taking place on the island of Skiathos on July 12-16. Held under the aegis of the Andreas Papandreou Foundation, the Symi symposia bring together leading academics, entrepreneurs, politicians, religious leaders, diplomats, scientists, and activists to develop progressive policy solutions to global challenges. The first such symposium was held in 1998 on the island of Symi, which has lent its name to the event ever since. This year’s theme is ‘Putting People First – Progressive Governance for a Green Economy and a Just Society’. The aim is to explore the steps required to lay the foundations for stable economic growth, environmental protection and social cohesion.  This year’s invited participants include Columbia University Business School professor and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences (2001), Joseph Stiglitz, French Socialist Party’s former presidential candidate Segolene Royal, World Bank Vice President and Greenpeace International Executive Director, Gerd Leipold.

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Reading Greece

(GREEK NEWS AGENDA)  Julian Evans: An aesthetic of fatality (Times Literary Supplement  25.7.2008)
The Boundless Garden. Selected short stories, Volume One. By Alexandros Papadiamandis. Edited by Denise Harvey & Lambros Kamperidis, Athens: Harvey and Co. 
“The saint of modern Greek storytelling Alexandros Papadiamandis (1851- 1911) has rarely been published in English.  This is not a simple matter for a writer many Greeks believe to be the saint of modern Greek storytelling, its Dickens or its Chekhov.
The Boundless Garden, the first of a new three-volume English edition of Papadiamandis’s stories, was initiated by Philip Sherrard in the early 1990s and was continued by his widow, Denise Harvey. It constitutes a memorial tribute to Sherrard’s lifelong efforts to restore poetry and spirituality to what he felt to be the aridity of modern existence.
The Skiathos-born Papadiamandis, wedded to rural island Greece, simultaneously pantheistic and Orthodox, widely versed in the European literary tradition, explored themes of emigration, displacement and exile, paganism and the power of evil, urban solitude, the shattering of a homogeneous past by the momentum of modernity. These things, Sherrard believed, required the restorative synthesis of poetry to make their hardship and loss bearable…”

The Movie “Mama Mia” in Poland

(GREEK NEWS AGENDA)   The movie “Mamma Mia!” on screens in Poland from August 29. The movie “Mamma Mia!” achieved the biggest opening ever for a movie musical in the United States  last month month. At $27.6 million, ‘Mamma Mia!’ beat out ‘Hairspray’ which opened with $27.5 million a few years ago. To create the enchanting – yet imaginary – island of Kalokairi, film shootings took place on the islands Skopelos, Skiathos and on Damouchari beach in Pelion area during August and September 2007. Most of the filming was done in Skopelos, were locations included Kastani beach, Agios Ioannis, Amaranto and Nisi Glisteri. Greece has always had a long and spectacular love affair with the international film making community. The need for new images in the film industry has led to a boom in optical effects and the quest for visually pristine locations. Greece has this visual wealth of natural landscapes to offer in regions like Macedonia, Epirus, Peloponnese, and of course the islands in the Aegean, the Sporades islands and the Ionian seas. Since 1974, the Greek Film Centre supports the production and promotion of Greek films and fosters the participation of Greek producers in foreign productions. in this context, the Hellenic Film Commission Office (www.hfco.gr) provides every possible service for filming in Greece. Skopelos Island: Skopelos Mamma Mia Blog Secretariat General of Information: World Media on Greece – Lifestyle 

“Mamma Mia” in Greece and in Poland

(GREEK NEWS AGENDA)  London’s Leicester Square had something of the Aegean Sea’s flair on the night of “Mamma Mia”’s world premiere yesterday. A blue carpet instead of a red one so as to remind fans of the colours of the Aegean, a small chapel surrounded by typical Greek flowers, as well as sounds by famous ABBA songs was the setting of yesterday’s premiere. “Mamma mia” the movie, starring Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan and Colin Firth was filmed on the Greek islands of the Aegean, Skopelos and Skiathos of the  in 2007. Tom Hanks and his wife, Rita Wilson are the producers. The premiere is set for tomorrow July 3. In Warsaw the projection is set for the end of August.  Mammia Mia, The Movie: www.mammamiamovie.com