The 16th Ethnofest will take place from November 25 to 30 at Astor Cinema, on December 1st at the Greek Film Archive, and will continue with selected online screenings (ethnofest.gr).
With great joy and anticipation, this year’s edition inaugurates an important collaboration with the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, introducing the Athens audience to remarkable works by Greek filmmakers who illuminate the Greek landscape and its people with sensitivity and poetic vision.
This is a unique cinematic journey through the Greek countryside, presented through rare documentaries by iconic directors. The tribute “Geography of the Gaze: The Unplanned Greece (1950–2000)” was born from the rediscovery of Kastoria by Takis Kanellopoulos and was first presented at the 27th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival.
Following its great success there, it now continues its journey in Athens, finding its ideal home at Ethnofest – The Athens Ethnographic Film Festival. With its focus on socially oriented documentaries and films that adopt an ethnographic approach, the festival will host and contextualize the tribute within its Intangible Cultural Heritage section.
Starting from Kastoria, the curatorial team of the tribute — consisting of Eleni Androutsopoulou, Head of the Greek Program at the Thessaloniki Film Festival, Manolis Kranakis, film critic, and Yiannis Palavos, collaborator of the festival’s International Program — undertakes a mapping of the Greek countryside through documentaries by major Greek directors who explore the spirit, collective memory, and human geography of the land.
The films in the tribute “Geography of the Gaze: The Unplanned Greece (1950–2000)” approach with originality and depth themes such as tradition, personal experience, trauma, and coexistence, composing a multilayered and revealing portrait of Greece’s social, political, and cultural life in the second half of the 20th century.
Many of these films have been rarely screened on the big screen and are invaluable records not only of Greek film history but also of Greece’s spiritual and cultural heritage.
Watch the trailer of the tribute HERE.
Tribute’s Films:
ALUMINIUM OF GREECE | Roussos Koundouros, Greece, 1965, 21’
FIREWALKERS OF GREECE | Roussos Koundouros, Greece, 1959, 10΄
GAZOROS SERRON | Takis Hatzopoulos, Greece, 1974, 77΄
IN MYTILENE | Manos Efstratiadis, Greece, 1973, 13΄
A DOCUMENTARY | Nikos Koutelidakis, Greece, 1980, 20΄
VISIT GREECE | Fotos Lamprinos, Greece, 1969, 25΄
HERACLES, ACHELOOS AND MY GRANNY | Dimitris Koutsiabasakos, Greece, 1997, 29΄
THASOS | Takis Kanellopoulos, Greece, 1961, 18΄
SWEAT ON THE THRESHING FLOOR | Giannis Lambrou, Greece, 1995, 25’
KASTORIA | Takis Kanellopoulos, Greece, 1969, 24΄
LEFKADA, THE ISLAND OF POETS | Roviros Manthoulis, Greece, 1958, 16΄
MACEDONIAN WEDDING | Takis Kanellopoulos, Greece, 1960, 23΄
ON A LITTLE GREEK ISLAND | Matheo Yamalakis, Greece, 1978, 56΄
PRESPES | Takis Hatzopoulos, Greece, 1966, 14΄
LAYER OF DESTRUCTION | Costas Vrettakos, Geece, 1980, 32΄
THE DANCE OF THE HORSES | Christos Voupouras, Greece, 2000, 64΄
