In this resource page, I explore and share an overview of Greek film and cinema. While this topic is not a central urban issue, film and creative industries flourish in urban environments, and in turn may shape urban life. Rather than stretch this justification, I will just admitted that I am curious about this topic and wanted to share it, so I am using this platform. But I do summarize some research that specifically focuses on Greek cinema and urban issues.
Before digging into the research on Greek cinema, this is all I knew about Greek films:
Black and white comedies from the 1950s, colorful musicals and movies featuring Greek beaches from the 1960s-1970s (I watched a couple of these), Zorba the Greek (1964), Never on a Sunday (1960), Z (1968) and A Touch of Spice (Politiki Kouzina, 2003).
A recent conversation with my friend’s teenage daughter inspired me to learn about the history and evolution of films in Greece and share what I learned. My friend’s daughter (also my friend of course) has lived in the U.S. for a few years after spending most of her childhood in Greece. Recently she re-discovered classic Greek films, particularly the black and white comedies from the 1950s. When she told me this, I immediately recalled the summer a few years ago when I watched several of these films. Later that year, I moved to Greece and watched several colorful, extravagant classic Greek films from the 1960s and 1970s, including a couple musicals: A Greek Woman in the Harem (Μία Ελληνίδα στο Χαρέμι, 1971, by Giannis Dalianidis) and My Aunt the Hippie (Η Θεία Μου η Χίπισσα, 1970, by Alekos Sakellarios). They were so extravagant, festive and cheery that I found it surprising that they were filmed during the years Greece was under a military dictatorship. At the time, I could not find a full overview of the history of the Greek film industry to explore why this might be. My young friend’s interest in classic Greek films rekindled my curiosity about Greek cinema. Why do the movies of the 1950s-1970s seem to be the most prolific and popular, or most broadcast on Greek television to this day? Were there any popular films after the 1970s? How did extreme political events affect film production in Greece?
Recent developments spark further questions about how Greek cinema evolved and changed. Films by Greek directors and producers have been gaining international acclaim. For example, Yorgos Lanthimos works with famous Hollywood actors and has received Academy Award nominations for his films. During the pandemic, Greece began priding (and praising) itself for opening up to serve as a location for major Hollywood productions, especially Thessaloniki. At the same time, however, people in Athens are rallying to save key historic cinemas (Astor and the Ideal) from redevelopment into hotel and office spaces – with the same Greek directors of internationally acclaimed films, like Lanthimos, joining their efforts. There appears to be a contradiction between Greece’s pride and support of filmmakers and filmmaking on the international arena and a seeming disregard for its few remaining historic cinemas even in the heart of Athens.
To follow my curiosity, I did some research to learn about the history and evolution of Greek cinema. I like to share what I learn, so this resource page is for anyone who is just discovering Greek films or is curious about the topic.
This is an introductory resource, rather than an analysis, or critical analysis, because as I mentioned, I am still learning about Greek cinema, and I have only seen a few films. I hope this provides an interesting overview and inspires people who may want to do their own further research and analysis on Greek cinema in general or on various specific aspects of this cinema.
I consider this a first edition, and as I learn more, I hope to update it in a second edition.
The main sources I used are:
- a 2002 article by Dan Georgakas,
- Stratos E. Constantinidis’s introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Modern Greek Studies in 2000,
- Vrasidas Karalis’s 2012 book A History of Greek Cinema, and
- the 2012 volume Greek Cinema: Texts, Histories, Identities edited by Lydia Papadimitriou and Yannis Tzioumakis.
I cite many more sources throughout. Refer to these works for more detailed information and in-depth research and analysis. The sources available for most of the 20th century are inadequate. According to Georgakas and Constantinidis, the majority of studies on Greek film and cinema were published beginning in the 1990s, and some were incomplete or had errors.[1] Most of the resources I found and refer to here are published after 2000.
In the sections that follow, I first describe what I consider ‘Greek film’ or ‘Greek cinema’, because this can include or exclude different things, and it has been used differently in some books and articles. I then provide a brief overview of the relevant political, economic and social developments in Greece since the arrival of film. While I try to keep this overview short, I elaborate more on some of the events or periods that receive less attention in public discussions, online English-language descriptions of Greek history, or even in academic research, including the civil war. This is followed by the overview of the evolution of filmmaking and cinema in Greece, and finally, sections that focus on women and queer representation in Greek cinema.
What is Considered Greek Film or Greek Cinema?
“A national cinema is fashioned on the desire to summon the nation on film.” – Philip E. Phillis (2020, p. 16)
It is important to recognize that Greek film and cinema may include Greek-language films made for Greek audiences by directors of Greek origin (living in Greece or Greek diaspora filmmakers living abroad) as well as films with a Greek theme made by Greek diaspora or non-Greek directors for international audiences. Phillis (2020) shows that as Greek society became more transnational after decades of Greek people emigrating, Greece’s integration in the European Union, increasing international co-productions, and new waves of people arriving since the early 1990s, Greek cinema should also be recognized as transnational and include for example Albanian directors living and/or filming in Greece.
An overview of the political, social and economic context in Greece
The evolution of filmmaking and the film industry from the beginning of the 20th century was affected in many ways by dramatic events and changes in the political, social and economic context in Greece and the country’s international relations and position. These circumstances influenced filmmakers and the interests and behaviors of audiences and they affected the development of the film industry. I provide a brief overview of this context and will refer back to it while discussing specific developments in Greek cinema.
As the 20th century arrived, Greece was in the process of forming as a nation state and still under the influence or control of foreign powers. Greece was under the rule of the Ottoman Empire for almost 400 years until the Greek revolution in 1821 when it began gaining its independence and becoming a formally recognized nation state, the Hellenic Republic. Still, in those early years the so-called Great Powers of Britain, France and Russia installed a Bavarian Prince to rule Greece as king.
The early part of the 20th century was, as historian Mark Mazower called it, a time of “nation-making through force” (2004, p. 331). In the first years of the 1900s, northern Greece and many islands, including Crete, were still under direct Ottoman control, revolts and battles with the Ottomans and with Bulgaria continued, and the Great Powers influenced the evolution of the emerging Greek nation’s borders and its governance, external relations and financial affairs. Thessaloniki and Macedonia in northern Greece were not liberated and annexed to the Hellenic Republic until 1912-1913. World War I was a part of the violent ending of empires, including the Ottoman Empire. The struggles over borders for newly independent nation states like Greece continued through this war and its aftermath, including the international treaties that followed.
As WWI began, there was a significant political divide in Greece between the royalists that supported King Constantine I, and Eleftherios Venizelos who led the liberal party and was elected Prime Minister in 1910. The royalists were siding with the Germans, so the British and the French forced Constantine I to leave the country in 1917 and Greece officially entered the war allied with the Entente (the Allies).
The interwar period (1918-1939) was a time of monumental change for the population and society in Greece. Armed conflict and battles between Greece and the Turkish National Movement continued from 1919 to 1922 as Greece tried to gain back ancestral territory in Asia Minor while the Allies were still partitioning the Ottoman Empire. The 1922-1923 Asia Minor Catastrophe involved a mandatory, violent and traumatizing exchange of populations between Greece and the newly forming nation of Turkey, formalized in the Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations and the Treaty of Lausanne (signed 1923). Even before this unprecedented mandated population exchange, voluntary exchanges, expulsions and discussions about population exchanges were occurring since 1913 (Mazower, 2004). The mandatory and forced exchange uprooted the lives of the Christian population of Turkey and the Muslim population of Greece. An estimated 350,000-400,000 Muslims were displaced from Greece, and between 1.3 and 1.5 million displaced people arrived in Greece, amounting to over 25% of the total population. This had significant implications for housing, labor, social relations, land use policy and urban transformations. It also fueled an ongoing debate about ‘Greekness’, infused with pain and a persistent focus on who does not belong.
Rural migration and the arrival of refugees from Asia Minor shaped the early urbanization developments in Greece. Athens and other smaller cities needed permanent settlements for workers arriving from rural areas and temporary or permanent settlements for refugees. As a result, the concept and practice of the state playing a role in housing and settling certain socio-economic segments of the population emerged at this time. The first town plans of many current cities were drawn up, but the foundation for unplanned and uncontrolled construction and urban sprawl was also established as the government struggled to facilitate the housing needs of a rapidly changing and growing population. (Gizeli, 2009)
Political instability, including coups and dictatorships, occurred throughout the interwar period. The monarchy was abolished via a referendum in 1924, but from 1924 to 1928, 11 coups and three general elections “produced no less than 10 prime ministers” (Georgakas 2002, p. 3) and the dictatorship of General Theodoros Pangalos from 1925-1926. Political turmoil, corruption and labour unrest continued. In 1935, a royalist took power after a coup, held a rigged referendum, and restored a monarch (King George II). This monarch then enabled a dictatorship under General Ioannis Metaxas from 1936-1941.
During World War II, German, Italian and Bulgarian Axis forces occupied Greece, and Greeks had a strong but internally divided resistance movement that included a communist and left-wing branch and an anti-communist branch. At the end of WWII, 3,742 villages and 183,717 houses had been totally or partially destroyed (Van Boeschoten, 2014, citing Voglis, 2009, p. 98) and “23% of all buildings had been seriously damaged (Karadimou-Yerolympou, 2009)”.
After WWII, Greece descended into a brutal Civil War from 1943-1949 (officially beginning in 1946). Communist and left-oriented groups fought against the government of the (then) Kingdom of Greece and Greek royalists even before WWII and the Axis occupations ended. In November 1944, the government published a law to prosecute Axis occupation collaborators, but in early December Greek police fired on a rally in central Athens demanding the punishment of the Security Battalions (established by the collaborationist government to help the Nazis). They killed 28 people, mostly youth. British troops were present, as the British were tied to the Greek monarchy, and some thought they joined the Greek police in firing (Pritchard, 2015, citing André Gerolymatos). This event sparked a series of armed clashes over the next weeks, known as the Dekemvriana (‘December events’), with British military forces now actively involved (even bringing in tanks and conducting air raids). It ended with the leftists agreeing to disarm and disband, but the Greek government was emboldened to turn on communists and leftists. It began persecuting and sentencing them more extensively and more harshly than local Nazi collaborators, even using the collaborationist Security Battalions to fight them, and purged them from the civil service. In 1945, collaborationist ministers and the wartime head of the Special Security police that were on trial became defiant and claimed ‘defending the state against communism’ to justify their collaboration with the Germans. Right-wing paramilitary groups and the National Guard became emboldened to increase violence in the provinces. With thousands of assaults and more than 1,200 murders, this wave of right-wing violence throughout 1945 became known as the ‘white terror’ (Mazower, 1995, pp. 273-274). Communists and suspected leftists fled to the mountains and launched attacks against government forces and supporters across Greece in 1946. The communist party was publicly calling for reconciliation in the form of a general amnesty and an all-party conference, but the conservative government, army, Guard and police refused (Mazower, 1995). A referendum in September 1946 again brought back the King.
Atrocities were committed by all sides throughout the extended civil war (Siani-Davies & Katsikas, 2009). Through this conflict, an estimated 60,000-80,000 people lost their lives, 700,000 people (10% of the population) were displaced mostly from the countryside and into poverty in and around cities (Van Boeschoten, 2014, citing Laiou, 1987, p. 98), 286,000 houses were destroyed (Van Boeschoten, 2014, citing Karadimou-Yerolympou, 2009, p. 98) and three quarters of schools were destroyed. Torture, rape, sexual violence, and the threat of rape were used during and after the war as a political strategy to repress and politically discredit women leftist partisans and activists, to create social chaos in communities through stigmatization, and to maintain patriarchal nationalism. Slavic-speaking women were especially targeted, and juvenile political detainees were also interrogated and tortured through sexual abuse (Stefatos, 2012).
In the decades following the civil war, the divisions and traumas of the war were kept alive through institutional persecution of communists and leftists and leftist ideology, the people and politics remained polarized, and while the country was developing as a democracy, it still had a European king. The monarchy was not abolished until after the military dictatorship (1967-1974), under the conservative government of Constantine Karamanlis. The communist party had been banned before the wars, in 1936 by the Metaxas dictatorship, and was not legalized until the fall of the military dictatorship.
At the end of the civil war conflict, 18,000 people remained political prisoners and 31,400 people were in exile on inhospitable islands or abroad or in ‘reformation camps’ (Van Boeschoten, 2014, citing Voglis 2002, p. 98), and 140,000 people left the country (Van Boeschoten, 2014, citing Close, 1995, p. 98). In the first years after the war, relief financing from foreign aid (UN and US) strengthened the conservative government, as distribution of aid goods was run by the Greek government and supportive local elites (Van Boeschoten, 2014). There was a long period of political repression and persecution of communists and leftists and their relatives, and many Greeks were excluded from fundamental freedoms and public life. Laws deprived people of property, citizenship, pensions, employment and civil liberties for being leftist participants in the resistance against the Axis occupation or for ‘antinational behavior’. The persecution extended to entire families and communities with relatives being blocked from access to work, pensions and higher education (Mazower, 1995). In 1947, mass internment camps were established, where political prisoners endured hard labour and torture (Voglis, 2004) and the government introduced loyalty statements and police certificates that were used to intimidate and shame people, enforce ideological submission, and purge leftists from employment and education. At the same time, former Security Battalionists were incorporated into the army and National Guard, and most people charged with collaboration were acquitted or released before trial (Mazower, 1995). Extremists, or secret right-wing militias linked to the state, police and military, grew so brazen that in May of 1963, they assassinated the pacifist politician Grigoris Lambrakis in Thessaloniki, sparking massive demonstrations. A new constitution in 1952 was supposed to safeguard civil liberties, but emergency laws and measures from 1946-1951 remained in force under parliamentary resolution enabling continued discrimination and exclusion (Van Boeschoten 2014 and Mazower 1995, referencing Alivizatos, 1986). Pressure to change civil war legislation began in the early 1960s, though there was still clear resistance (Mazower, 1995). The more liberal government of Georgios Papandreou released most remaining political prisoners and encouraged public discussion of the war, but still demonstrated censorship and was opposed by hardline conservative and extreme right elements in state institutions. In this environment, there were confrontations and clashes at public commemoration and celebration events (Mazower, 1995).
This institutional persecution amounted to collective punishment and a form of “political apartheid” (Close, 2004, p. 259). This lasted nearly three decades, and some regard this as the “permanent civil war” (Voglis, 2002).
Even children were deliberately and traumatically used in the political, nationalist and propaganda strategies of the civil war and its aftermath. An estimated 20,000 to 28,000 children (about half from Slav-speaking families) were evacuated from northern Greece to Eastern Europe by the Greek Communist party, claiming this was for their protection and education, while the government and monarchy considered it a mass abduction (Siani-Davies & Katsikas, 2009; Van Boeschoten, 2014; Van Steen, 2019), though many parents did give their children for evacuation (Van Steen, 2019). This is referred to as the paidomazoma (‘collection of the children’). In a competing effort, the queen (wife of the monarch restored in 1946) with the Greek state set up 52 child towns (paidopoleis) that gathered about 18,000 children that were orphaned, poor, or whose leftist parents were imprisoned or exiled to ‘save them’ from communism and to Hellenize those from Slavic-speaking villages and eradicate their Macedonian dialect (Van Boeschoten, 2014; Van Steen, 2019). There is an emerging consensus that the queen and the government began institutionalizing children first (Van Steen, 2019). The queen’s role expanded from setting up these nationalist child towns to involvement in the country’s new child welfare system taking shape during the war (Greek legislation concerning adoptions and the first Greek school for social work were established in 1946). The queen helped shape the emerging child welfare system into an autocratic system that would, throughout the 1950s, focus on getting children adopted overseas rather than developing domestic support services for families, children and unwed mothers. The overseas adoptions, especially to the United States, were interwoven with the monarchy and the government’s efforts to attract aid and investments, and with the evangelical anticommunist movements emerging in the US calling for intercountry adoption to “save” children (Van Steen, 2019). The queen’s involvement also reinforced the politicization and anticommunist motivations of the child welfare system (Van Steen, 2019). When the war ended, the government initially allowed children in Eastern Europe to return to Greece, but then changed its position as many returned “with positive reports”, “were Slavic-speaking children who had developed a Macedonian national identity” (Van Boeschoten, 2014, p. 104, citing Lagani 1996; Ristovic 2000) and it feared the older children would be returning as communists (Van Steen, 2019).
There was no real reconciliation after the devastating and traumatizing war decade of the 1940s in Greece. There was a reconstruction of the state and its political and governance institutions but for decades, the identity of the nation (the delineation of who does and does not belong) and social relations within local communities and in society overall were subjected to divisions and exclusion reinforced by political elites, state institutions, the hardcore Right and foreign powers (Van Boeschoten, 2014). If we understand post-conflict reconciliation as “a total restoration of social trust between former enemies, based on a shared knowledge of past events and on a mutual recognition of both the wrongdoings of one’s own side and the suffering of the other” (Van Boeschoten, 2014, p. 96) and “the public recognition of collective trauma” (p. 113) which is the basis for truth and reconciliation commissions and efforts in South Africa (post-apartheid) and Rwanda (post- brutal conflict), there was no post-war truth and reconciliation in Greece.
Creating shared knowledge or a shared narrative entails remembering, forgetting, and absencing – intentionally silencing or restricting information in an effort to forget it (Monteil et al., 2020). The Greek governments actively absenced information and memories of the resistance, the civil war and the subsequent persecution of the Left. Partisan groups routinely destroyed the files and records of opposing sides, but the most brazen case of official government absencing occurred in 1989 when a newly elected conservative government, in agreement with a communist and leftist coalition party, burned nearly 17.5 million surveillance files on leftists formerly suspected by the police (despite the existence of a law about preserving public records). The files dated from the 1930s to the 1980s. The Communist party wanted the files destroyed to ensure there would be no further intimidation and persecution, the conservative government claimed the destruction was necessary to assure the public that citizens would not be monitored like that anymore and to assure police informers that they would not be exposed. Representatives of the PASOK socialist party protested the burnings in many locations, many members of resistance groups protested, and academics signed an open letter of protest against the erasure of the archive of 50 years of state repression and information about the national resistance and civil war (Close, 2004).
Memories were kept alive by the various sides (for example, by veterans associations) but Greek party alignment and public opinion remained divided along the 1940s partisan lines well into the 1980s (Close, 2004). Radio and television (under a state monopoly until the late 1980s) avoided recent history. Academic discussions and publications about the wars and the resistance in the 1940s were not possible in Greece until after the fall of the military dictatorship in 1974 (Mazower, 1995; Close, 2004). For information, people had to seek out memoirs, newspaper articles, academic studies and films that only emerged after 1974 (Close, 2004). For decades, the civil war was not mentioned in school textbooks, or it was mentioned with an anticommunist lens, or mentioned but not taught (Close, 2004).
In April 1967, a right-wing group of colonels carried out a coup d’état and established a junta, or military dictatorship that lasted until 1974. This coup was a reaction to a growing demand for a more liberal society and government in the early 1960s. These were years where socioeconomic changes, urbanization, coming of age of younger generations, and broader socio-political trends helped embolden people to challenge social taboos, and raise controversial social issues in public life, art, movies and their political demands. A women’s rights movement was active and becoming more organized at this time (more on this in the Women in Greek Cinema section). The more liberal centrist government of Georgios Papandreou (1963-1965) declared it would struggle against the far-right and promoted liberalization policies for more democratic governance, including removing some of the persecution measures against leftists (Siani-Davies & Katsikas, 2009).
The colonels of the junta suppressed civil liberties, suspended democratic governance and imprisoned, tortured and exiled political opponents, particularly communists and leftists, but they enacted populist economic policies, welcomed funds from foreign entities and corporations, allowed Western film and music (with some censorship for political themes), and encouraged a growing tourism industry.
The junta ended in 1974 after a series of events and developments: the regime’s violent actions on November 17, 1973 to suppress the massive student strike and sit-in at the National Technical University of Athens, or Polytechnic (they rolled a tank through the gates and 24 people were killed); the divisions and power struggles among hardliners and those that wanted some reforms grew; and the Turkish invasion of Cyprus following the junta-sponsored Cypriot coup d’état overthrowing the president. The colonels were arrested and brought to trial for high treason by the new government in a mass trial staged at a prison and televised. The leaders were sentenced to death, but later the sentences were commuted to life in prison. There was a second trial for the events of the Polytechnic uprising, and a third for the torturers. These militarized and theatrical trials were rushed and the verdict was that the crimes happened over two days at the beginning of the coup. This prevented further prosecution of collaborators and there was no public, inclusive process to work through, acknowledge, punish or reconcile all the abuses, oppression, and trauma of the dictatorship years. In 1990, the Greek government planned to grant amnesty to the junta principles, but dropped it after backlash.
It took the occurrence of a military dictatorship in ‘the cradle of democracy’ that ended only after it interfered and triggered a Turkish invasion in another nation (Cyprus) for a sort of political and politicized reconciliation to be discussed and debated openly in politics and electoral campaigns. Political leaders and parties used the term reconciliation symfiliosi (reconciliation), but it meant different things to different parties (Siani-Davies & Katsikas, 2009). Even newspapers detailed the events of the civil war, but in context of political campaigns (Close, 2004). In the 1981 general election, PASOK used the term reconciliation to refer to recognizing the role of the Left in the resistance during WWII and undoing the official persecution of the Left. Political reconciliation was a theme of the general election in 1989, but the New Democracy party used it with calls for katharsis (cleansing the political system from PASOK scandals) to attack PASOK (Close, 2004). All this may be attributed more to the political players finally seeing the necessity for an inclusive electoral democratic system than a commitment to honest, deep reconciliation (Siani-Davies & Katsikas, 2009). As a result of parties politicizing the process of recognizing some of the events of the past (including the Left’s role in the national resistance) and overturning the laws of persecution and exclusion, painful subjects were exposed and many differing points of view, memories and interpretations of the past were expressed in public (Close, 2004; Siani-Davies & Katsikas, 2009). But there was no process to come to any shared truth or collective healing, or to right the wrongs of the past and commit to social justice.
The 1960s and 1970s were decades of mass emigration, with more than one million Greeks moving to Western Europe, the U.S., Australia and Canada (Pratsinakis, 2022). At the same time, from the 1950s through the 1970s, there was rapid and largely unplanned urbanization and construction (encouraged during the junta) though public expenditure for urban infrastructure was inadequate. The population of metropolitan Athens more than doubled during these three decades and by 1981, the number of cities with populations over 100,000 jumped from three to six (Economou et al., 2007). The key features of this post-war land policy were the predominance of small land plots, the extensive scope of unauthorized construction that expanded town boundaries and urban sprawl, and the weakness and ineffectiveness of urban, land use and spatial planning and regulation by the government (Economou et al., 2007). During this period of urbanization and construction, the living conditions of many Greeks improved and purchasing power increased.
In 1981, Greece officially joined the European Community that went on to become the European Union (EU). (Greece adopted the euro in 2001). Yet throughout the 1980s Greece was still the most polarized country of the European Economic Community (EEC) according to polls – political elites, party leaders and even Church leaders were in large part people who had taken an active part in the civil war (Close, 2004).
The socialist party PASOK was elected to power from 1981 to 1989 at the leadership of Andreas Papandreou. In 1982, it passed a law providing official recognition to the national resistance, and Papandreou delivered a speech in parliament about recognizing the National Resistance groups of various political ideologies (New Democracy deputies walked out). In 1983, a ministerial decree annulled many past decrees that deprived the leftists of the 1940s of their political rights, and two years later, Law 1543 restored pension rights to public servants formerly dismissed for political reasons and provided pensions to disabled or partly disabled veterans of the resistance. Also in 1983, Papandreou allowed ethnic Greeks from former Soviet Union republics in central Europe and central Asia to ‘return’ to Greece. This included people that fled Greece as political refugees during the Civil War and historic ethnic diaspora Greeks that lived there for generations (Pratsinakis, 2021). The return excluded former Greek citizens who spoke Slav Macedonian and lived in northern Greece (during the 1940s at least 30,000 fled to Yugoslavia, while others were expelled or forcibly relocated by Greek authorities trying to suppress their existence since 1920s or earlier) (Mazower, 1995). But for “Greeks by race” (ellines to genos), the invitation was unconditional, resulting in large numbers of people arriving in Greece. Many were newcomers, as they never lived in Greece previously and did not speak the language. By 1993, an estimated 120,000 people arrived from these areas, and they continued arriving through the 1990s (Voutira, 2004). The government gave the repatriated Greeks financial assistance and incentives to build houses in agricultural areas in northern Greece and in satellite villages around the big cities, but it did not expect the large numbers, so the settlement policies and experiences were not well planned or thought through. The arrival of large numbers of newcomers, even if they were ethnic Greek, and the support they received from the government resulted in tensions and resentment with the local population and renewed debates about “Greekness”, or who is Greek and who belongs.
At the same time, as communist regimes collapsed and to escape the genocide in the former Yugoslavia, more people migrated to Greece from the Balkans through the 1990s, beginning with large numbers of Albanians after the collapse of the communist regime there in 1991. People also began arriving from the Middle East, Asia and Africa, whether to remain in Greece or continue to other European countries. Greece remained restrictive towards immigration of non-Greeks, even as it benefited from the labor of large numbers of Albanian and other migrants, adding to the tensions and heightened focus on difference and division. Cities and large towns started to become more diverse and multicultural, though tensions, xenophobia and conflicts continued and to this day a sense of belonging is still slow to develop for long-time immigrants and newcomers.
In 1989 there was again political instability, with two elections resulting in hung parliaments, and in the election the following year, a conservative government under Constantine Mitsotakis took office with only a one-seat majority.
From the late 1990s into the early 2000s, Greece superficially and temporarily benefited from European Union funding and economic activity that exploited the cheap labour of migrants. This period culminated with Greece welcoming athletes, visitors, volunteers and attention from around the world as it hosted the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. However, underlying problems remained: political corruption, clientelism, dysfunctional democratic institutions, societal conflicts, reliance on European funds that were often wasted and misused, and already-declining industry, especially in and around Thessaloniki.
Beginning in 2009, Greece went through a sovereign debt crisis, triggered by the 2007-2008 global financial crisis and the revelation that the government debt was more than was reported in previous years. This led to severe austerity measures, bailout loans and control of government decisions from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Eurogroup of the EU and the European Central Bank (ECB). These measures created and exacerbated economic, political and social problems in Greece and created an era of depression with high unemployment, especially for youth.
Another wave of increased migration flows began in 2015, with mostly refugees and asylum seekers from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan fleeing conflict and persecution. The number of people arriving in Greece increased dramatically that year (Greece recorded about 880,000 arrivals in 2015) as more people crossed the Aegean Sea by boat from Turkey to Greece, in part because it became more difficult for people to travel from North Africa to Italy. Most arrived on Greek islands, particularly Lesvos, and the government created camps throughout Greece, mainly just outside of cities and towns. The urgent needs of the people arriving and Greece’s limited capacity to provide them with basic needs and process their asylum applications as it was still under austerity measures brought in the presence of many international humanitarian organizations. This situation inspired many solidarity, social cohesion and multi-cultural initiatives, though there were also public attitudes of hostility and intolerance expressed as perceived economic threat as well as racism and Islamophobia. The situation was also highly politicized by political parties, elites and media. (Kousis, Chatzidaki & Kafetsios, 2022)
The History and Evolution of Greek Film and Cinema
The history and evolution of Greek cinema began with the arrival of the first film projections in 1896 and evolved with different phases, often influenced by changes in technology and developments in international production and the by political, social and economic context in Greece. Researchers divide this history into overlapping periods in different ways, but I use Constaninidis’s (2000) approach and divide this history into five periods that align with the quarters of the last century and first part of this century.
First period – Turn of the century through 1920s
In 1896, moving pictures arrived in Greece. Through her research in the Greek press, Delveroudi (2022) found that “the first Athenian film exhibition [of short silent clips] took place November 28, 1896, in a hall specifically rented for that purpose, before an audience of journalists and scientists” (p. 85), and they were open to the public the next day. Delveroudi (2022) explores how films arrived in Athens, how the business of Greek cinema developed and the transnational factors that shaped these developments from 1896-1908.
In 1905, the Manakia brothers made the first known Greek film, The Weavers (Gyanikes pou klotoun). They were in Abdela, near Grevena in northern Greece, which was still part of the Ottoman Empire until it was annexed to Greece in 1913. This was a multi-ethnic environment and the brothers spoke several languages. They are more appropriately considered Balkan filmmakers, as they produced films throughout that region of Southeast Europe. Today they are claimed as the first cinematographers of six countries across the region, including Greece, Yugoslavia, North Macedonia, Romania, Turkey, and Albania (Delveroudi, 2022).
In 1910, Spiros Dimitrakopoulos founded the first production company in Athens, and formal movie theaters opened in Athens and Smyrna. By 1923, film studios opened in Patras and Thessaloniki, and later in other cities (Karalis, 2012).
In 1914, the first Greek feature film, Golfo, was written and directed by Konstantinos Bahatoris. Georgakas (2002) described this as “a kind of Romeo and Juliet in a Greek mountain setting”. It was very influential, with remakes in 1932 (the first Greek talking picture) and 1955.
From 1906 to 1920, filmmakers made short “journal” films that celebrated the Olympic games, King Constantine, and archaeological sites, or focused on current issues in the Balkans (Georgakas 2002).
1918 – The studio Dag-Film was founded and began producing history films, operettas and literary adaptations, and pioneered the foustanella genre based on folkloric tradition (Kuhn & Westwell, 2020).
In the early 1920s, more comedies were made, the first film reviews appeared in newspapers, a regular audience for films developed, and an urban melodrama was the first box office hit in 1925 (Georgakas 2002).
Open-air cinemas and the shaping identity of urban Athens
Film arrived and took hold in Greece during the initial stages of modern urban development in Athens. Outdoor open-air movie theaters were an important infrastructure for the expansion of cinema in Greece and for social interaction and the early development of an Athenian urban identity and culture (Christofides & Saliba, 2012). Early film projections for audiences took place in a network of open spaces that existed for Karagiozis shadow puppet theater (featuring a fictional folklore trickster character that became popular in Asia Minor), puppet theater and touring theatrical plays. In today’s terms: pop-up cinema! Eventually, as film grew in popularity and phased out other forms of theater entertainment, these spaces transformed into open-air cinemas. These cinemas served as spaces for social interaction, especially in working class neighbourhoods and suburbs that spread out around the city unplanned, with few spaces reserved for open public community use. In the majority of these neighbourhoods, the ticket price was kept low compared to first-run theaters in the city center to keep this entertainment affordable.
In this period, many residents were from rural areas and new to an urbanizing environment. The physical open-air characteristic of these cinemas was more familiar to the people from rural areas, and many of the early locally produced Greek films showed the countryside and idealized the traditional way of life (particularly the foustanella dramas). At the same time, most films were from abroad, especially the U.S. and Europe, so they brought images of the most developed modern metropolises. Christofides and Saliba (2012) found that many Greek newspaper articles of the time expressed a desire “to relate Greek culture to other urban cultures of Europe” (p. 105) while some journalists argued that Greeks were imitating or conforming to Western culture rather than learning about it (or from it). As a medium that brings people images of other places, film creates connections “between the real, the symbolic and the imaginary perception of the city” and its possible futures (p. 101). There were signs that the public wanted the Athenian landscape to be captured on film, based on newspaper articles of the time. The Greek foustanella films were a contrast to early film productions globally that featured developed urban areas and were related to technology and progress (for example one of the first films was the Lumière brothers’ 1896 film featuring a train) (p. 106). But for many Athens residents, these foustanella films brought familiarity.
The combination and contrast of the images brought by imported films and the traditional and rural images of Greek films fed the public discussion and debate about the emerging urban culture and identity of Athens and what it should become. Some reviewers found the foustanella films “not suitable for the emerging identity of people in Athens” (p. 107). A notable film in this genre was Maria Pentayiotissa (1929, Ahilleas Madras), promoted in the press and based on a widely known story (Karalis refers to Maria Pentayiotissa as the “Greek Calamity Jane”, p. 13). A number of critics appreciated that the film was professional looking and contributed to the development of a national film industry (Madras spent time in the U.S. and introduced technical, methodological and artistic practices to local production), but critics were “reluctant to recognize it as a prime example of a national genre or style” (p. 107). However, one reason for the production and appeal of foustanella films with the idealized and sanitized portrayal of rural life and tradition may be that the trauma of displacement was still very recent for the many refugees from Asia Minor living in the villages and expanding suburbs around Athens after 1922 (Karalis, 2012).
This demonstrates how films fueled the debates, imagination and aspirations related to urban and ethnic and national culture that is always changing as populations, technologies and knowledge move and evolve.
Second period – 1920s through 1950
The exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey in the early 1920s was the most traumatic event in modern Greek history and had an extensive and lasting impact on many lives, Greek society and collective memory. It has an ongoing impact on themes of national identity, relations to homeland and loss, and attempts to define “Greekness”. Karalis suggests that, “Its presence can be felt either implicitly or explicitly as the anxiety substratum of most Greek films, indeed of all cultural production, to this day” (p. 10). Josef Hepp, a German-Hungarian who played a significant role in the early development and technological advances of cinema in Greece, released a documentary about the population exchange in 1923, The Exchange of Captives in Asia Minor (Karalis, 2012). The film Social Decay (Koinoniki Sapila, 1932, Stelios Tatassopoulos, made in studios of Istanbul) was “perhaps the first, Greek movie of socialist realism that addressed the fresh trauma of the Asia Minor Catastrophe” (Karalis, 2012, p. 24)
According to Constantinidis (2000), films in this period overall reflected the interests and tastes of elites rather than a wider collective Greek consciousness. Still, from 1925 to 1935, film production and ticket sales increased. Production companies in Athens, Patras and Thessaloniki produced 30 silent features, with as many as 40,000 viewers and “the concept of a movie star began to take hold” (Georgakas 2002, p. 3).
Films with sound, or talking pictures, emerged globally from the mid to late 1920s. The first talking picture produced in Greece was the 1932 remake of Golfo. For some years after the mid 1930s, films had to be sent to Egypt or Germany for sound to be added, because Greece did not have studios with adequate sound facilities.
The 1931 film Daphne and Chloe, a lyrical romance adaptation of an ancient Greek story, may be the first Greek film with a script written for the cinema (Karalis, 2012, p. 25). In this film, the heroine appears nude during a bathing scene, without sexuality and desire in the scene’s context and presentation. This nudity was a first in cinema, even predating Ecstasy (1933) where an extended nude scene featuring Hedy Lamarr gained global attention.
In the 1920s and 1930s, film themes and production in Greece were impacted by Greek dictatorships, and restrictions by other governments. The Pangalos dictatorship (1925-1926) exerted control over film production so many films presented patriotic and melodramatic stories. Pangalos introduced the first legislation restricting filmmakers and film content, and enacted rules dictating the public conduct of audiences at cinemas (behavior, dress code, exclusion of minors) (Karalis, 2012). According to Karalis, “beginning in 1927, every kind of filming of public events required special permission from the police” (p. 21). Cinema attendance was heavily taxed; with almost 60 percent of the ticket price going government tax and distributors taking another large portion, only a small percentage went to the producer, director, actors and others involved in the production. As a result, there was a strike at all the cinemas of Athens in 1927 to protest the heavy taxation and lack of support for Greek films (Karalis, 2012).
Under Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos (1928-1932), a center-right liberal, there were reduced taxes and some support for local film production, but he also introduced the first anti-communist laws in 1929 that had the effect of censorship on film content (Karalis, 2012).
The Metaxas dictatorship (1936-1941) enacted strict censorship on media, a Law on Cinema, and a 70 percent tax on all “public spectacles” (Karalis, 2012, p. 31). A 1937 Metaxas law on cinema restricted what could be said and depicted in films and established a committee of army and police officers to rate films. The committee went so far as to claim that going to the cinema would lead to physical and mental health problems. Film production declined, and only a handful of scripted feature films were made in Greece from 1935-1943. Seven Greek language films were produced in studios in Egypt from 1937-1939. However, the Metaxas dictatorship was interested in supporting film production for the purposes of propaganda and took actions “to sustain production firms through commissioned documentaries” (Stassinopoulou, 2012, p. 133-134). Documentaries glorified Metaxas’ tours around the country as the “Father of the Nation” and the Fascist Youth Organization (EON), and the regime imported projection machines to screen these reels for the public (Karalis, 2012). Companies that profited most during the earlier Venizelos rule (DAG-Gaziadis and Olympia-Dadiras) did not appear in the film industry during the Metaxas regime.
Film production was also challenging through the 1930s due to the absence of a studio system with the necessary technology, including sound facilities. Filmmakers could not take on grand historical or imaginative stories because technology limited what they could produce in comparison to Italy, for example, where historical reconstructions and period dramas were produced at that time (Karalis, 2012).
In 1939, Filopimin Finos produced and directed his first film. He went on to produce many films in the 1950s through his Finos Films studio and took a “leading role in the creation of the Greek studio system” (Constantinidis, 2000, p. 4).
Film production slowed during WWII and the Greek Civil War in the 1940s but did not stop. During WWII, German and Italian forces occupied parts of Greece, and Greeks continued to produce films while Greek audiences boycotted German and Italian films, but Finos and others were arrested by the Germans for participating in the Resistance (Georgakas 2002). During the occupations, the German state-owned film company bought its former agent in Greece, Damaskinos, and founded Hellas Film AG, with Damaskinos on the board of directors. The Italians also founded Esperia Film, though Stassinopoulou (2012) notes that, “There are almost no traces of the production activities of either Hellas Film or Esperia Film” (p. 135).
Even with the extreme political divisions, occupations, violent conflict and efforts for propaganda and censorship, politics did not have full control over cinema. Stassinopoulou (2012) found that in the films produced from 1942-1944 (mostly dramas), “the cast and crew had different backgrounds and political affiliations” (p. 135). The same family companies controlled film imports, distribution and/or productions from the 1930s to the late 1950s, and some of these companies also made profits from owning first-run cinemas in Athens (Anzervos Films and Skouras Films), so their conflicting interests may have influenced decisions regarding what films to produce (aiming for feature films that would easily sell tickets) and rapid overinvestment in the industry (Stassinopoulou, 2012).
Third period – 1950s through mid 1970s
After the Greek Civil War, U.S. aid to support the Greek royalists against the Greek communists contributed to an increase in film and cultural production (Constantinidis 2000). Greek film production in this period was “spectacular” (Constantinidis, 2000, p. 4), and audiences also turned out for imported American, British, French and Italian subtitled films.
The studio era: Through the 1950s and 1960s, rapid urbanization and increased incomes contributed to the growing demand for mass entertainment and movies – especially comedies, melodramas and musicals (Papadimitriou, 2013). The Lykourgos Stavrakos Film School was established in 1951, as well as other new film schools around this time (Constantinidis 2000). A studio system based on the Hollywood model produced hundreds of films in different genres, though comedy and melodrama were dominant as they were “popular and politically ‘safe’ genres” for that time (Kokonis, 2012, p. 43). (Georgakopoulou (2000) examines the popular comedies produced by Finos Films in 1960s and how they serve as indices of sociocultural processes.) Six studios were dominant in this period: Finos Films, Anzervos Films, Novak Films, Spentzos Films, Karayiannis-Karatzopoulos, and Damaskinos-Mihailidis (Constantinidis, 2002).
Films followed the classical Hollywood model, including an emphasis on characters, especially because the Greek industry produced national movie stars such as George Foundos, Aliki Vougiouklaki, Jenny Karezi, Thanassis Vengos and Rena Vlahopoulou.
The Greek film industry differed from Hollywood in a few ways: the sets and action were more theatrical because more actors and writers came from a stage background, there were more static shots due to a lack of advanced camera equipment, and the scripts were simple potentially because the audience was largely uneducated people from rural areas that moving to the cities (Kokonis, 2012, citing Athanasatou 2001) or because scriptwriting was not valued as an art form and it was assumed only the director would write the script for his film vision (Karalis, 2012).
Production and audiences peaked in 1966 (177 Greek films released) and 1968 (137 million tickets sold). When admissions reached 100 million per year, that was equivalent to 10-15 visits to the movie theater per person (Kokonis, 2012, p. 41). In the mid-1960s, the Greek film industry produced more films per capita annually than Hollywood (Karalis, 2012, p. 79). The number of movie theaters in urban centers grew – in Athens there were 350 year-round cinemas and 600 in summer with the open-air outdoor theaters (Karalis, 2012; Constantinidis, 2000).
Greek filmmakers like Melina Mercouri, Michael Cacoyannis, and Irene Papas gain international fame, and Greek films introduce bouzouki music and the work of composers Manos Hadjidakis and Mikis Theodorakis to a world audience (Georgakas 2002). In 1960, Never on a Sunday, debuted and became an international success. It was directed by American expatriate Jules Dassin and starred Melina Mercouri and Dassin. According to Karalis (2012, p. 93), “Dassin was the first international director who not only made a number of films in Greece, but also attracted international funds and casts for films in the country”. This golden era would not last and the reasons for its decline were inherent in the way the industry was structured – and ways it was not regulated. Despite the successful studio industry, no Film Academy to educate new talent was established, and there was no legislation to regulate the film market, so a profit motive dominated the industry. Production companies, distribution offices and cinemas multiplied too fast for the size of the Greek market; there were 243 companies, though only a handful had active production every year (Kokonis, 2012, p. 42).
In 1960 and 1972, the National Film Festival and the Thessaloniki International Film Festival were established, respectively, and they hosted films with controversial social topics and unconventional cinematic styles (Constantinidis 2000).
1963 – The Greek Film Archive (Ταινιοθήκη της Ελλάδος) was established to preserve a film record. Karalis notes that in recent decades, the Greek Film Archive and the Greek Film Center made efforts to restore and preserve films from 1910-1939 (p. 41).
Postwar Urbanization, Inequity, Cinema and Censorship
One group of films in the 1950s and early 1960s characterized as ‘neo-realist’ are important for understanding the role of cinema through the period of rapid urbanization in Greece, especially Athens, and the country’s development and identity-building efforts after the decade of war. As rapid urbanization and construction of homes and physical infrastructure from 1950-1970 transformed the Athens cityscape, the government actively promoted the country’s reconstruction, development and tourism industry, and controlled cinema to align with these efforts. Poupou (2012) shows that while “Greek cinema…projected an idealized view of Athens as a locus of modernity and prosperity, a symbol of national unity, and a showcase for the development of the tourist industry” (p. 257), neo-realist films contested the idealized image of Athens (and Greece) and revealed marginalized and exploited populations and parts of the city. Poupou examines two of these films that were both censored by state film or tourism agencies because they were deemed to hurt the city’s image and efforts to attract tourism.
Magic City (Magiki Poli, 1953) featured the poverty and living conditions in the Athens slum Dourgouti. Director Nikos Koundouros, who was imprisoned in the ‘exile’ camp of Makronissos after the Civil War, undertook field research in the neighbourhood and some of the residents appeared in the film. When the film was selected to participate in a film festival in Venice in 1954, the Greek Committee for the Control of Films censored it. After 10 days of deliberation, it allowed the film to be exported to be shown in the festival only after shots of the recently reconstructed upper-class residential area of the city center were added in (p. 261). The delay meant the film could not participate officially in the festival, and had to be shown afterwards. Dream Neighbourhood (Sinikia to Oniro, 1961, Alekos Alexandrakis) was filmed in a refugee settlement called Asirmatos near Athens center (now upper Petralona) and “presents a violent image of social exclusion” (p. 264). It was selected for the Thessaloniki Film Festival in 1961 but was censored and excluded after the Organisation of Greek Tourism complained that it did not contribute to the tourist image of the city. Its distribution in cinemas was also prohibited for a short time, then the government allowed limited screenings in big cities, but it was distributed widely a few months later after reactions by the press (p. 264).
Cinema during the Dictatorship of the Colonels
The military dictatorship from 1964 to 1975 had a significant impact on the industry and existing and emerging filmmakers. The junta censored “and occasionally butchered films, both Greek and foreign” (Constantinidis 2000, p. 6). This censorship and political repression resulted in less film production and pushed several high-profile filmmakers to leave the country, including Cacoyiannis, Koundouros, Mercouri and others, and Voulgaris was sent to exile (Kokonis, 2012; Constantinidis, 2000). Despite the censorship and decrease in film production, both high art films and low art films (tsonta, or pornographic film) were popular, indicated by increased ticket sales in Athens (Constantinidis, 2002). Many films produced during the junta glorified patriotism and the soldier as hero, and while they had war themes based on the Italian, German and Bulgarian invasions, they ‘erased all references’ to the left-wing and communist resistance that also occurred in Greece (Karalis, 2012, p. 138). The patriotic films were not solely the products of filmmakers in Greece. Greek-American James Paris produced many such films with support from the Greek state (Karalis, 2012).
The junta encouraged tourism, and musicals grew along with the tourism industry. They were popular in the 1960s and early 1970s. Musicals expressed the tensions and conflicts between Westernization influences and traditional Greekness and other versions of Greekness through their portrayals of the Greek tourism and leisure industry, characters working for this industry and the downsides or potential risks of tourism for the country (Papadimitriou, 2000). Papadimitriou’s (2013) analysis reveals how popular musical films also expressed these conflicts by playing with types of music (jazz and rock versus bouzouki and syrtaki for example) and structural elements of the American musical or other theatrical formats, such as the epitheorisi (the Greek version of music hall or revue with sketches, songs and satire). Specifically, she examines the popular musicals Some Like it Cold (Μερικοί το προτιμούν κρύο, 1963), Girls for Kisses (Κορίτσια για φίλημα, 1965), and Mermaids and Lads (Γοργόνες και μάγκες, 1969)
Fourth Period mid to late 1970s – 1990s
This is the period of the New Greek Cinema and a new generation of filmmakers. But it is also a period when Greek films began losing viewers to Greek television, movies for home video, and to foreign films, particularly American movies. Several studios closed during this period, including Finos Films (Constantinidis 2000).
New Greek Cinema: The dictatorship and its censorship fueled the motivation of independent Greek film directors to create a new style of films and deliver social and political critiques. For example, in 1968, the political thriller Z (standing for the first letter of the Greek word Zi ([He] Lives) by Greek-French director Costa-Gavras was released, based on the political novel Z by Vassilis Vassilikos, inspired by the life and assassination of Lambrakis.
A new generation of filmmakers aimed to make more modernist, artistic films rather than films that would be popular with a broad audience and aim for commercial success. These filmmakers adopted the auteur style, with the director featuring on their own distinct style or approach through the film (Georgakas, 2002; Kokonis, 2012). This is referred to as the New Greek Cinema period. Many of the New Greek Cinema films of the1970s and 1980s delivered a critical focus on political and collective or national history, particularly the Greek Civil War and the persecution of the Left (Chalkou, 2019).
Filmmaker Theodoros (Theo) Angelopoulos played a leading role in the New Greek Cinema. When his film Reconstruction (Anaparastasi) won an award at the 1970 Thessaloniki Film Festival, this was considered a turning point in Greek cinema by Greek commentators (Kokonis, 2012). Angelopoulos is regarded as a “lynchpin for the recognition of a New Greek Cinema” focusing on social and political issues openly in film content (Kokonis, 2012, p. 43). His four-hour epic The Travelling Players (1975) presented Greek political history from a leftist perspective and won the Special Critics Award at the 1975 Cannes film festival.
Films of the New Greek Cinema had a limited, elite and progressive audience. Filmmakers had difficulty showing their films to the wider public because distribution agencies controlled movie theaters, television focused on popular culture, and they could not access foreign markets.
These filmmakers were often self-financed or they would seek out the financing themselves (Kokonis, 2012) from wealthy individuals or through co-productions with other Europeans (Georgakas 2002).
Eventually, the Greek Film Center, a government agency founded in 1970, financed film production and implemented other measures to support Greek films, such as tax incentives for theater owners to screen Greek films.
But the New Greek Cinema films still lost audience, partly to television, and partly because films became more about the eccentricities and self-indulgence of the filmmakers, according to analysis of Kokonis and Georgakas.
In 1973, the Greek Directors Guild (GDG) was founded in Athens, as a professional association of screen, theatre, and television directors.
In 1974, the first year after the Junta dictatorship, many documentaries were produced, including on the 1973 Polytechnic uprising and the Turkish invasion of Cyprus following the Greek Junta sponsored Cypriot coup d’état, such as Cacoyannis’s Attila 74. A number of experimental films also appeared, including Model (Montelo) and Metropolis by Kostas Sfikas (Karalis, 2012).
In 1975, the Greek Film Critics Association was founded.
After the junta and as Greece joined the European Union in 1981, the Greek government tried to help revive the film industry by restructuring the Greek Film Center, increasing financial support to Greek film productions, and establishing Hellas Films to oversee co-productions with foreign partners and promote Greek films abroad (Constantinidis 2000).
The ideology and underdog or victim mentality of the ruling socialist party during the 1980s impacted the film industry. PASOK abolished the 1942 law that imposed strict censorship on the film industry, made Melina Mercouri a lifelong minister for culture, and “after 1982, the state would fund almost every proposal for film submitted to the Greek Film Center” (Karalis, 2012, p. 195). However, as Karalis argues, films had to conform to the ideology of the ruling socialists. They preferred representations of a continuous class war, the struggles against the “privileged”, the oppression and persecution of the left and the common people, so many films and television series portrayed “political persecutions of dissidents and the common people” (p. 196). In films produced in the 1980s about the Civil War, the left-wing fighter was portrayed as the hero and/or “perpetual victim”, according to Karalis’s analysis. Apparently, brutality committed by the left was censored by the government: when Nicholas Gage requested permission to film the story about his mother who was executed by the communists during the Civil War on the mountains of Epirus, the government refused him permission (Karalis, 2012).
In this context, many filmmakers chose to reject additional portrayals of the past and nation-scale political themes acceptable to the government and instead focused on stories of individuals, especially the histories, experiences and perspectives of marginalized groups long ignored, oppressed or excluded by mainstream society (Karalis, 2012). There were films depicting or exploring the relatively new urban life and the new lower-middle class, the treatment of people with mental disabilities, the experiences and perceptions of homosexuals, and the perspectives and agency of women.
The 1980s were a period of very low movie theater attendance because the ruling government ideology preferred art films over commercial entertainment cinema, and because of the technological development allowing widespread distribution of films on videotape. The films that tended to be popular on video were slapstick comedies (the prolific movies featuring Stathis Psaltis is a notable example) and soft porn (Karalis, 2012, p. 207). Even among Greeks abroad, as Needham (2012) found in a study of Greek films released in the UK from 1978-1984 through websites of online DVD retailers, “by far the most widely seen films in this period in the UK would qualify as (s)exploitation” (Papadimitriou & Tzioumakis, 2012, p. 13).
Television also pulled people away from movie cinemas. Television broadcasting began in 1966 in Greece, and it spread rapidly in the early 1970s. Until 1988, TV was a state monopoly with two initial channels, and ultimately three National Radio-Television (ERT) channels. Private television channels were established after the airwaves were deregulated in 1988, and drew more viewers and more attention from producers.
Greek public television overwhelmingly favored the films of the Old Greek Cinema, from the 1950s and 1960s studio era. It aired Greek films “repeatedly, daily, and uncontrollably” (Mikelidis 1997, cited in Constantinidis, 2002, p. 10), but from the 1980s – 2000, channels aired films produced in the 1950-1975 period (a time when conservative or right-wing governments were in power and this ideology was prominent) more than those produced in the 1975-2000 period. Constantinidis (2002) argues this is only partly because there was greater number of films produced in the earlier period. After studying 50 films, he found that the films from the studio era (1950s-1960s) distorted history and the experiences of Greeks from the time of the wars in the 1940s through the 1960s and the junta, in some cases ‘blending them with fairy tale’ (p. 14). These films contributed to changing the historic memory on several themes: divisions between lower and middle socio-economic classes; patriarchy, gender inequality and even femicide; the conflict between traditional values and modern/Western ones; and the role of hierarchical military institutions in relation to democracy and equality.
Fifth Period – 1990s through the early 21st century
After the significant decline of film production and movie theater attendance through the 1980s, the government’s Greek Film Center finally responded through a new funding program for new directors with experimental projects (Karalis, 2012). A new generation of filmmakers in Athens made independent films, often on tight budgets, and aimed to bring Greek audiences back to Greek language films (Constantinidis 2000). Beginning in the early 1990s, Greek cinema relied more on co-sponsorship, co-productions and non-Greek financing, including funding from the EU or European and American companies. For example, Martin Scorsese supported Pentelis Voulgaris’s Brides (2004).
Multiplex cinemas with upgraded screens and surround sound began opening in the early 1990s and Hollywood blockbusters took over audience attention as Hollywood increased its globalized marketing, production and distribution. Many traditional theaters closed and the spaces converted to “parking spaces and supermarkets” (Kokonis, p. 44). Local municipalities started funding cinema theaters to screen art house films and convene public discussions (Karalis, 2012).
Greek filmmakers continued to face the challenge of maintaining obth their artistry and cinematic style as well as the enthusiasm and attention of mass Greek audiences (Georgakas, 2002). After 1995 and through the 2000s, there was a small set of Greek films that had ‘blockbuster’ success at the box office, while most remained unsuccessful at drawing an audience (Kokonis, 2012). The film Safe Sex that came out in 2000 and used well-known actors from TV sit-coms was a big hit and attracted an increased audience with more than 100,000 tickets. The success of Safe Sex contribute to an increase in annual film production. The ‘blockbusters’ success of select films, including Safe Sex, A Touch of Spice (Politiki Kouzina, 2003), Brides (Nifes, 2004), Loafing and Camouflage: Sirens in the Aegean (Loufa ke Parallagi: Sirines sto Egeo, 2005), and El Greco (2006), can be attributed partly to the fact that they managed to obtain big budgets, connected with international distribution companies and arrange spectacular productions with the help of new companies using new digital technologies for technical and visual aspects of production, and use more narrative elements that an international audience could relate to (Kokonis, 2012).
During this period, there were more women filmmakers [see more in the Women in Greek Cinema section below] and quality documentaries (Georgakas 2002).
As immigration to Greece increased in the 1990s, Karalis (2012) describes how many filmmakers explored diversity, difference and identities based on gender, self-definition, sexuality, class, and migration experience, and the experience of “otherness”, exclusion and “the inability of the society to accept difference and divergence” (p. 244). The displacement, migration journey and experiences of people coming to Greece and questions of ethnicity and national belonging became a prominent theme in films. Some directors migrated to Greece and produced films, including Bujar Alimani who migrated from Albania to Greece and directed the first Greek-Albanian co-production films. However, many of these films are difficult for international audiences to access (See Phillis 2020 for a filmography and analysis of migration and Greek cinema).
One way that films in the 1990s and 2000s focused on micro-histories, individuals and everyday life is by centering stories around a child or adolescent and their coming-of-age experiences and memories of the past. (Child-centered films began appearing in European cinemas in the 1980s.) Chalkou (2019) presents an analysis of how this subgenre of films dealt with the past, the present, and hope for the future. These films did not try to present national history, but focused on the importance of everyday life and how sociopolitical historical events and the traumas they cause have intergenerational impacts on individual life trajectories, families and everyday collective life. Using a child’s viewpoint allowed filmmakers to use humor, playfulness and imagination in new ways, so they could refer to historical traumas while also conveying the optimism, joy and potential of childhood. In particular, these films often focused on the years of the Junta (the time when many of the film makers grew up) or the population exchanges and ethnic and religious persecution, though the politics and history are mentioned “momentarily” or “cause fleeting ruptures in the narrative” (p. 189). Chalkou describes how this is in contrast to many of the New Greek Cinema films that focused on national politics and history and where children were mostly absent.
In the years of economic depression following the economic crisis of 2009, there was less funding available from the Greek government but the number of films began increasing again, from 27 produced in 2010 to 46 produced in 2014. Low-budget art films produced during this period received critical acclaim and prizes at international film festivals. These films produced in the 2010s constituted the Greek New Wave or Greek Weird Wave, including Dogtooth (Kynodontas, 2009) by Yorgos Lanthimos, Little England (Mikra Anglia, 2013) by Pantelis Voulgaris, and Chevalier (2015) by Athina Rachel Tsangari (Kuhn & Westwell, 2020). In November 2009, many important film makers, producers and actors established an independent Hellenic Film Academy (Elliniki Akadimia Kinimatografou). It is a self-funded organization that hosts annual awards decided by film makers (Karalis, 2012). This Academy commissioned the Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research (FEIR) to prepare an in-depth analysis of the local film industry. The report was published December 2014 and is available in Greek here.
In 2010, there were about 400 cinemas in Greece, most of them multiplexes belonging to international companies, with only 10 percent of them independently owned (Karalis, 2012, p. 276).
In 2013, directors, producers, scriptwriters and film editors came together to establish the Greek Documentary Association.
Greece as location for Hollywood and foreign film productions: In 2017, the National Center of Audiovisual Media and Communication in Greece (EKOME) was set up to attract and support productions from around the world. From April 2018 to April 2021, EKOME supported 125 productions, including 60 international productions, with a total investment of €127M ($150M) through competitive funding incentives, cash rebates and tax relief (Lodderhose, 2021).
Women in Greek Cinema
In the early period of filmmaking in Greece, depictions of women in silent movies and early talking pictures were based on the male-dominated society’s traditional values and stereotypes. For example, Komninos (2011) points out that three box office hits from 1926-1931 had shepherdesses as protagonists, and there were strong elements of voyeurism in one of the notable films of this time, Daphnis and Chloe (1931, Orestis Laskos). Greek films in this period did not represent actual women, or even the glamorous or flapper types of Hollywood in the first half of the century (Komninos, 2011). A 1930 law included “family values, love, maternal affection” as acceptable content for “proper” films (Karalis, 2012, p. 21).
Interestingly, in this same early period, the “first serious film reviewer” was a woman (Karalis, 2012, p. 28).
In the decade after WWII and the civil war, Greek society and public debate was trying to suppress the issue of women’s emancipation. Women in Greece were granted the right to vote in 1952 but other important changes did not come until much later. Women were active in the resistance during WWII and women’s organizations developed at the end of the war, but by the end of the Civil War, these organizations along with other progressive movements were dissolved, their records confiscated, and thousands of women were imprisoned (Stamaris, 1987).
Women were making important productions, however. Lila Kourkoulakou directed The Island of Silence (To Nisi tis Siopis, 1959), a “controversial and groundbreaking” semi-documentary film about the people with leprosy forcibly interned on the small island of Spinalonga off Crete. It was partly filmed on the island, with the participation of real patients, and the impact of the film contributed to the closure of this leper colony (Karalis, 2012). Kourkoulakou was the first Greek woman director to participate in an international film competition, with her film representing Greece at the Venice Festival.
Greece missed the sexual liberation and feminist revolution happening in the U.S. and Western countries through the 1960s and into the 1970s because of the Junta (Karalis, 2012; Stamaris, 1987). Even leftist intellectuals were hostile to feminism, and leftist politicians did not regard gender as a political issue.
Two of Cacoyannis’s successful films, Stella (1955) and Zorba the Greek (1964) portrayed femicides – Stella is fatally stabbed by her fiancé after she did not show up to the wedding, and the young widow is stoned to death by the villagers in Zorba the Greek for rejecting a local boy as a husband and defying the village patriarchal code. In both cases, critics of the films at the time complained about the films portraying an imperfect image of Greeks to international audience, rather than addressing the status and treatment of women in Greek society (Komninos, 2011). Some leftist critics even protested against the feminist suggestions in Stella and called for the film to be banned (Komninos, 2011).
The women’s movement in re-emerged and new groups formed in the early 1960s, but under the junta, these organizations again were dissolved and feminists imprisoned or interned (Stamaris, 1987). In patriotic films during the Junta, women were represented as “the passive and ‘available’ victims of rape by invaders, who maintained their inner dignity in the fact of acts of violation by reciting patriotic verses” (Karalis, 2012, p. 138).
Through the 1960s and 1970s, women’s employment in service sector and achievements in higher education increased, but marriage and motherhood were the main expectation for women, and there was still pressure against women using contraceptive pills. A law against discrimination in employment and occupation on the basis of sex or marital status was not enacted until 2006, in response to an earlier EU Directive.
The women’s movement again re-emerged after the Junta but it was integrated with the wider struggle to return to a democratic parliamentary system and establish more progressive politics. Greek feminists in this period demanded equal rights, equal access to employment and affirmative action to achieve this; protested against capitalist structures and class exploitation; and made a case for the state’s obligation to provide for the social welfare of the workforce, including people in the informal economy, in unpaid caretaking roles or in piece-work industries, by providing day care, parental leave, and other services (Stamaris, 1987). After the Junta, the women’s movement aligned with the political parties of the Left, because this affiliation allowed them to spread their ideas and mobilize throughout the country. Some male party members still resented the women’s organizations, because they claimed the party should promote one set of goals, or they “resented the autonomy and exclusiveness” of the women’s groups, or they thought the more militant groups were asking for too much (Stamaris, 1987, p. 84).
The efforts of the women’s movement bore fruit in the 1980s, when the Socialist government took power. Many of the reforms that women’s groups demanded were in the new Family Law of 1983. This law finally abolished the dowry, provided gender equality in marriage, allowed civil marriage, and gave equal rights for children born outside wedlock. Adultery was also decriminalized that year, though domestic violence was not criminalized until 2006. Female equality was institutionalized throughout government: a General Secretariat for Equality was established in 1985 to recommend policy; a network of Equality bureaus in every prefecture was established; every major ministry and the Manpower Employment Agency introduced reforms to advance equality; rural women were finally allowed to participate in agricultural cooperatives; family planning services were introduced; day care centres were set up; school books were rewritten with the involvement of women’s organizations to express equality; and more (Stamaris, 1987, p. 85).
These legal and institutional changes in the mid 1980s were still “like drops in a sea of discrimination” (p. 86). Gender hierarchies keep men in leadership positions, especially in science and technology fields, and women were largely employed in unskilled jobs, or underemployed and underpaid at bottom of salary scale. The stagnant economy of Greece at this time made it difficult for women to leverage these legal changes and achieve results in the workforce. Because the women’s movement had focused on equal rights and worked with leftist political parties to achieve legislative, policy and regulatory changes, it lost its radical edge for a while, but it continued to expand its grassroots base and take on new activities: women’s bookshops opened as centres of information, research and documentation centres appeared, feminist teachers and students informally introduced women’s studies programmes, and a range of magazines circulated in Athens and the provinces (Stamaris, 1987, p. 86).
At this time, the women’s movement was also making a renewed effort for women’s basic right to control their bodies and reproductive health, confronting the issues of abortion, birth control and sexuality. Women’s groups and feminists argued for sex and contraceptive education in schools, against the stereotypical image of women portrayed in mass media including state-controlled radio and television, against the exploitation of the female body through sexualized images in advertising. They also focused on the issue of violence against women and demanded the establishment of women’s shelters for victims of domestic abuse, and the General Secretariat for Equality launched a training program for professionals supporting battered women. (p. 86)
In the 1980s, Greek films began to reflect some of the struggles, tensions and experiences that emerged from the changing gender roles in society. Films made by women in the first years of the 1980s, including Love Wanders in the Night (I Dromi tis Agapis Ine Nihterini, 1981) by Frida Liappa and The Price of Love (I Timi tis Agapis, 1983) by Tonia Marketaki, inspired other women filmmakers and were catalysts for more representation of women struggling to shape their own lives and achieve sexual emancipation against the pressures and restrictions of patriarchal structures and societal norms (Komninos, 2011). Marketaki was one of the most influential Greek women filmmakers, and her international award winning film The Price of Love is considered one of the most important films made in Greece. The protagonist is a woman who demonstrates agency and resilience: the man she loves leaves her because she is poor, but she makes it through the challenges of the industrial revolution’s impact on the island, and when he decides to return to her, she is strong and decided enough to send him away (Apostolidis, 2002). Some male filmmakers during this period portrayed the darker aspects of some women’s experiences in films that addressed sex trafficking in more or less direct ways (Komninos, 2011).
By the 1990s, Greek women filmmakers were producing more feature film with different kinds of female characters dealing with career and personal issues in different ways. Two of the influential filmmakers who inspired others with their work starting in the early 1980s, Marketaki and Liappa, passed away in the early 1990s. Karalis (2012) highlights some of the notable women filmmakers and films of the 1990s and 2000s.
In the early 2000s, a new generation of women filmmakers emerged. Women made many films in 2001 that were “bold, complex, interesting” and portrayed changes to the imbalance of gender roles in relationships (Apostolidis, 2002). Greek women took most of the national prizes at the 2002 Thessaloniki Film Festival (Georgakas 2002, p. 8, in footnote). From these films, Katerina Evangelakou’s Think it Over (Tha to Metaniosis, 2002) is a more directly feminist: her female protagonist falls and has a flashback of several decisions and life events under the patriarchal societal culture that she regrets, and then she decides to live the life she wants.
However, the child- or adolescent-centered films of the 1990s and 2000s predominantly featured boys, even when made by female directors, so female perspectives and narratives of the national past and its affects on personal and family lives remained marginalized in this subgenre (Chalkou, 2019). This may be because boys could move freely in public space and public life, and it was more socially acceptable to depict boys’ sexual awakenings, as some of the films did. Several of these films also had a significant focus on the science and technological innovation of that period (p. 195). Given that this theme was presented predominantly through boys’ perspectives, the films may have demonstrated and reinforced a bias that only boys would be interested and engaged in these fields. Regarding family dynamics and the socially accepted roles for men and women, Chalkou identified a trend in these films portraying the impacts of a problematic and insecure masculinity and the patriarchal role of men, and maintaining the image of mother as “symbol of familial stability and cohesion” (p.192).
Importantly, women’s marginalization and underrepresentation in politics and decision-making remains, whether in Parliament, Cabinet leadership positions, regional and local government elected leadership positions, and at the leadership level in powerful public institutions.
In 2018, the Greek film portal Flix.gr produced a video featuring 36 women in the film industry – producers, directors, actors, composers, directors of photography, screenwriters and more – sharing their thoughts on the contributions, joys, challenges and opportunities for women in the industry, as women in the industry (Pastras, 2018). While most of the women agreed that there are many women in Greek cinema today, including documentary filmmaking, some noted that there are few women in film photography and composing musical scores, and some observe a distrust of women’s capacities in technical departments and behind the camera. Most agreed there is still sexism in the industry, and while some have not encountered it, many shared specific examples of disparaging and blatantly sexist comments and incidents. Sexism can take different forms, some more overt and some almost imperceptible. Papadaki (screenwriter/author) noted that the comment “You write like a man” is still considered a great compliment. Panayotopoulou (director) said, “There’s a covert violence men use on women. Sometimes, your male colleague’s ultimate weapon to pressure/convince you is this fear. I, at least, have been subjected to it.” Some women suggested that the negative behaviors are often more about power, not necessarily about man or woman.
In response to the question of whether there are many women in Greek cinema today, Antouanetta Angelidi (director) offered a different question: “Is these women’s work as well known proportionately to the number of women in the field?” This calls on Karalis’s (2012) observation that there is a need for more research on the audience of movies – who goes to movie theaters but also what are people’s impressions, preferences and awareness of films and the film industry? Angelidi also pointed out that women “have to face selective oblivion”, which she described as “a certain silence concerning the work of women, this lack of equality in Greek cinema history”. Finally, there may be more women in the Greek film industry today, but several of the women expressed that female stories are still few, and there are few Greek movies in recent years that have a desirable lead female role or say something new about women. There is a need and an opportunity for far more representation, creativity and contribution from women and featuring women.
Queer Representation in Greek Cinema
In the first book-length study on the history of queer representation in Greek cinema, including discreet or disguised references and related themes, Konstantinos Kyriakos (2017) explored an extensive filmography from 1924-2016 and seven themes or aspects of this representation. The first period of queer representation in Greek cinema is considered to be the 1950s and 1960s when the stereotype and caricature “of a hysterical effeminate being” was the only homosexual figure portrayed in farce-comedy films (Kyriakos, 2017, p. 434). This portrayal kept the homosexual characters in positions of being ridiculed or being secondary, and reconfirmed the stereotypes held by audiences. However, there were subtle allusions to queer relationships and themes in Cacoyannis films in the 1960s.
In the second period of queer history of Greek cinema, the film portrayal changes but maintains homophobia: “Homosexuals are presented either as depressed and self-destructive, or as hedonistic and dangerous for social cohesion” (Kyriakos, 2017, p. 434). These portrayals appear “even in politically progressive films by major Greek directors” (Psaras, 2018, p. 127).
The third period occurred after the fall of the Junta and through the time of the global HIV/AIDS epidemic (beginning in 1981), as sexual liberation movements came out in the open. The Greek Homosexual Liberation Movement (Apeleftherotiko Kinima Omofilofilon Elladas, AKOE in Greek) founded in 1978 was one of the first openly gay organizations in the country. Lesbians who helped form AKOE soon left it in 1980 to join a feminist House of Women and published a lesbian journal called Lavris. Lesbians faced challenges in allying with straight feminists, and continued forming their own groups (Gianoulis, 2004).
The third period involves films that first appeared in the avant-garde scene of the 1970s and in mainstream cinema from the 1990s, largely from young directors educated in Europe who want to “bring about a change in the perception of the homosexual condition” (Kyriakos, 2017, p. 434). There was also an effort to create a Greek queer history through fiction and documentary films, including through biographical films of figures important for Greece and known as being gay: the Greek poet Napoleon Lapathiotis (Meteor and Shadow, 1985, Takis Spetsiotis); the philhellene Lord Byron (Byron, Ballad for a Demon, 1992, Nikos Koundouros); and the Greek poet from Alexandria, Egypt, Constantine P. Cavafy (Cavafy, 1996, Yannis Smaragdis) (Kyriakos, 2017).
The melodrama film Angel (Angelos, 1982, Yorgos Katakouzinos) was a turning point in queer representation in Greek films (Kyriakos, 2017). The film, based on real events, explored and portrayed masculinity, same-sex desire, sexual exploitation, transgenderism, and the fate and public perception of homosexuals in Greek society in a way that “invites emotional responses other than that of disgust, fear, or laughter” (Psaras, 2018, p. 128).
The films of the 1990s constitute the Greek version of the New Queer Cinema, from directors such as Alexis Bistikas, Constantinos Giannaris, Christos Dimas, Panos H. Koutras, Angelos Frantzis, and Athina Rachel Tsangari (Kyriakos, 2017, p. 436). New Queer Cinema, or films by openly gay film directors and representing queerness with honesty, diversity and a ‘be yourself’ approach, began in the early 1990s in Europe and the U.S.A., and a little more slowly in Greece. Kyriakos’s book includes chapters dedicated to examinations of the representation of feminine homosociality and homosexuality and the representation of transvestite, transgenderedness and social marginalization. The film Strella (2009) by director Panos H. Koutras first film with a trans woman as the lead.
Ancient Greece and Greek folklore
It is interesting to note, as Karalis points out, that cinema in Greece has rarely dealt with ancient or classical Greece, though there are a several Hollywood action and fantasy movies based on figures and stories from ancient Greece and Greek mythology (Troy, Hercules, Leonidas and the Spartans, etc).
An interesting recent Greek film features a famous folklore character. In 2022, the first Greek 3D animated film Καραγκιόζης, The Movie (Karagiozis) was released. It is based on the trickster main character of the Karagiozis shadow puppet theater shows that became popular in Asia Minor. The Karagiozis theater shows were actually phased out by cinema when it grew in the 1930s.
Challenges that remain today
There is little systemic political critique: Overall, Karalis (2012) argues that filmmakers in Greece still demonstrate a self-imposed censorship and avoid critiquing structural socio-political oppression by state institutions and social systems. He writes that, “despite the supposed “social” nature of most films, none of them is about political figures and their political actions, the way we have seen in Italy…” (p. 281). What is most needed now, he argues, is “a new political cinema” (p. 283).
Script writing remains weak: There is increasing recognition that most Greek films, even the successful ones, have a key weakness: the script, or screenplay. Even Greek filmmakers are more aware of this (Horton, 2002). In much of Greek filmmaking, the directors also wrote the scripts. The industry did not have a culture of collective scriptwriting. Horton reported that directors he spoke with “basically work alone or with only one or two friends” (p. 37). The film industry also did not recognize scriptwriting as an art form that can be developed rather than emerge solely from “a ‘genius’ writer” (Karalis, 2012, p. 282). There was no strong script program at a film school or classes at tertiary education teaching applied cinema. Even the Scriptwriters Guild of Greece was not established until 1989 when the first private television channels were created.
Lack of effort to understand movie audiences and use cinema and movie theaters to foster social connection and cohesion: There is also little information about audience demographics (who goes to the movies, and what do they like watching?) and no studies on the affordability of movie ticket prices, relative to average wages and disposable income (Karalis, 2012).
[1] For example, Ephraim Katz’s The Film Encyclopedia (2001) ignores Greek film production the first quarter century and according to Georgakas (2002, p. 7), Mel Schuster’s The Contemporary Greek Cinema (1983) is “highly inaccurate regarding the New Greek Cinema”.
References
Apostolidis, Persephone Tselentis. (2002). Female Presence and Male Absence: Recent Films by Greek Women. Film Criticism, 27(2), 43-59.
Chalkou, Maria. (2019). Childhood memories, family life, nostalgia, and historical trauma in contemporary Greek cinema. In T. Stauning Willert & G. Katsan (Eds.) Retelling the past in contemporary Greek literature, film and popular culture (pp. 185-199). Lexington Books.
Christofides, Yiannis & Saliba, Melissanthi (2012). Open-air cinema in Athens: The rise of the city and urban identities. In L. Papadimitriou & Y. Tzioumakis (Eds.), Greek cinema: Texts, histories, identities (pp. 97-113). Intellect.
Close, David. (2004). The road to reconciliation? The Greek Civil War and the politics of memory in the 1980s. In Carabott, P. & Sfikas, T. D. (Eds), The Greek Civil War: Essays on a conflict of exceptionalism and silences (pp. 257-278). Ashgate.
Constantinidis, Stratos E. (2000). Greek Film and the National Interest: A Brief Preface. Journal of Modern Greek Studies, 18(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1353/mgs.2000.0004
Constantinidis, Stratos, E. (2002). The Greek Studio System (1950-1970). Film Criticism, 27(2), 9-30.
Delveroudi, Eliza Anna (2022), Transnational Factors in the Shaping of the Early Greek Cinema Business, 1896–1908. In A. Dietze & A. Vari (Eds.), Urban Popular Culture and Entertainment: Experiences from Northern, East-Central, and Southern Europe, 1870s–1930s (pp. 81-108). First edition, Routledge. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/10.4324/9781003247401
Economou, Dimitris, Petrakos, George & Psycharis, Yannis (2007). National urban policy in Greece. In L. v. d. Berg, & E. Braun (Eds), National policy responses to urban challenges in Europe (pp. 193-216). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315597430
Georgakas, Dan. (2002). Greek Cinema For Beginners: A Thumbnail History. Film Criticism, 27(2), 2–8.
Georgakopoulou, Alexandra. (2000). On the Sociolinguistics of Popular Films: Funny Characters, Funny Voices. Journal of Modern Greek Studies, 18(1), 119–133. https://doi.org/10.1353/mgs.2000.0006
Gianoulis, Tina. (2004). Greece: Modern. glbtq Encyclopedia Project online archive. http://www.glbtqarchive.com/sshindex.html
Gizeli, Vika D. (2009). Social and urban transformations before and after the Asia Minor Catastrophe. In Lagopoulos, A. Ph. (Ed.). A history of the Greek city. Archaeopress.
Karadimou Gerolympou, Aleka. (2017, January 6). 1917: The destruction and rebirth of a city. TO VIMA. (Καραδήμου Γερολύμπου, Αλέκα. “1917: H καταστροφή και η αναγέννηση μιας πόλης.” TO BHMA) https://www.tovima.gr/2017/01/06/culture/1917-h-katastrofi-kai-i-anagennisi-mias-polis/
Karalis, Vrasidas. (2012). A History of Greek Cinema. Continuum.
Kokonis, Michalis (2012). Is there such a thing as a Greek blockbuster? The revival of contemporary Greek cinema. In L. Papadimitriou & Y. Tzioumakis (Eds.), Greek cinema: Texts, histories, identities (pp. 37–53). Intellect.
Komninos, Maria. (2011). Representations of Women in Greek Cinema. Journal of the Hellenic Diaspora, 37(1&2), 75-89.
Kousis, M., Chatzidaki, A., & Kafetsios, K. (2022). Challenging mobilities in and to the EU during times of crises: The case of Greece (1st Edition 2022). Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11574-5
Kuhn, Annette & Westwell, Guy. (2020). Greece, film in. In A Dictionary of Film Studies (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.
Kyriakos, Konstantinos. (2017). Politics and desire: The queer history of Greek cinema (1924 – 2016). Aigokeros.
Lodderhose, Diana. (2021, July 6). Hot Spots: How Greece Has Emerged As A Top Location For Hollywood & Foreign Productions. Deadline.
Loukopoulou, Katerina. (2018). “A Campaign of Truth”: Marshall Plan Films in Greece. In H. Wasson & L. Grieveson (Eds.), Cinema’s Military Industrial Complex (pp. 321–338). University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780520965263-020
Mazower, Mark. (1995). The Cold War and the appropriation of memory: Greece after liberation. East European Politics and Societies, 9(2), 272–294. https://doi.org/10.1177/0888325495009002005
Mazower, Mark. (2004). Salonica, city of ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews, 1430-1950. HarperCollins.
Monteil, Charlotte, Barclay, Jenni & Hicks, Anna. (2020). Remembering, forgetting, and absencing disasters in the post-disaster recovery process. International Journal of Disaster Risk Science, 11(3), 287–299. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13753-020-00277-8
Papadimitriou, Lydia (2000). Traveling on Screen: Tourism and the Greek Film Musical. Journal of Modern Greek Studies, 18(1), 95-104. https://doi.org/10.1353/mgs.2000.0004
Papadimitriou, Lydia (2013). Greece. In C. K. Creekmur & L. Y. Mokdad (Eds.), The International Film Musical (pp. 92-104). Edinburgh University Press. https://doi.org/10.3366/j.ctvxcrvf9.12
Papadimitriou, Lydia, & Tzioumakis, Yannis (Eds). (2012). Greek cinema: Texts, histories, identities. Intellect.
Pastras, Nikos. (Director). (2018) Women of Greek Cinema [Film]. Flix.gr. https://vimeo.com/258135602
Phillis, Philip E. (2020). Greek Cinema and Migration, 1991-2016. Edinburgh University Press.
Poupou, Anna (2012). The geography of neo-realism in Greece: City images, urban representations and aesthetics of space. In L. Papadimitriou & Y. Tzioumakis (Eds.), Greek cinema: Texts, histories, identities (pp. 253-269). Intellect.
Pratsinakis, Manolis. (2021). Ethnic Return Migration, Exclusion and the Role of Ethnic Options: ‘Soviet Greek’ migrants in Their Ethnic Homeland and the Pontic Identity. Nations and Nationalism 27(2): 497–512.
Pratsinakis, Manolis. (2022). Greece’s emigration during the crisis beyond the brain drain. In M. Kousis, A. Chatzidaki, & K. Kafetsios (Eds.), Challenging mobilities in and to the EU during times of crises (pp. 27-44). Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11574-5
Pritchard, Stephen. (2015, March 28). The readers’ editor on … Athens, 1944The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/mar/28/readers-editor-on-athens-44-british-army
Psaras, Marios, (2018). Politics and desire: The queer history of Greek cinema (1924 – 2016) by Konstantinos Kyriakos (2017). Filmicon: Journal of Greek Film Studies, Issue 5, pp. 125-130.
Siani-Davies, Peter, & Katsikas, Stefanos. (2009). National reconciliation after civil war: The case of Greece. Journal of Peace Research, 46(4), 559–575. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022343309334611
Stamaris, Eleni. (1986). The woman’s movement in Greece. New Left Review 158: 98-112.
Stassinopoulou, Maria A. (2012). Definitely Maybe: Possible Narratives of the History of Greek Cinema. In L. Papadimitriou & Y. Tzioumakis (Eds.), Greek cinema: Texts, histories, identities. Intellect.
Stefatos, Katherine. (2012). The victimisation of the body and the body politic during the Greek Civil War, 1946–49. In Branche, R., & Virgili, F. (Eds.). Rape in wartime (pp. 47-66). Palgrave Macmillan UK.
Van Boeschoten, Riki. (2014). Enemies of the Nation—A Nation of Enemies. In Kissane, B. (Ed.), After Civil War (pp. 93–120). University of Pennsylvania Press. https://doi.org/10.9783/9780812290301.93
Van Steen, Gonda. (2019). Adoption, memory, and Cold War Greece : Kid pro quo? University of Michigan Press.
Voglis, Polymeris (2004). Becoming communist: Political prisoners as a subject during the Greek Civil War. In Carabott, P. & Sfikas, T. D. (Eds), The Greek Civil War: Essays on a conflict of exceptionalism and silences (pp. 141-157). Ashgate.
Voutira, Eftihia. (2004). Ethnic Greeks from the Former Soviet Union as “Privileged Return Migrants”. Espace Populations Sociétés, 2004(2004/3), 533–544. https://doi.org/10.4000/eps.364