Lydia Papadimitriou

The national and the transnational in contemporary Greek cinema

Due to its limited exportability, Greek cinema has often been examined as a national phenomenon, the cinematic influences from Western and other cinemas often being derided as weaknesses. The search for an elusive Greekness has often disappointed critics of 1950s and 1960s popular cinema, while the artistic New Greek Cinema of the 1970s and 1980s has self-consciously tried to define itself in national terms. Focusing on contemporary Greek cinema, and in particular on films with box office success, this paper explores the extent to which contemporary Greek films display transnational configurations.

Transitions in the Periphery: Funding Film Production in Greece since the Financial Crisis

ABSTRACT The article focuses on Greece and explores the extent and ways in which film production funding cultures have changed in the period 2010–2015. It maps out the hybrid modes of funding embraced by filmmakers in this period, and explores the extent to which new models, such as crowdfunding, were adopted, European co-production opportunities were more fully embraced, as well as how far traditional modes of financing such as, on the one hand, state funding, and, on the other, private, distributor-led, backing have persisted. As a country of the European periphery, and one particularly hard-hit by the recent financial crisis, Greece offers a good example of the processes of an uncertain, but also creatively productive, cultural, and financial transition. Set within the broader context of global changes led by technology, the national case study illustrates how state and private top-bottom funding initiatives have begun to co-exist with bottom-up production and dissemination processes, and how some new players have entered the scene. The patterns revealed through this exploration of the new funding cultures for film production in Greece contribute to an understanding of the impact of global economic transformations on a national level, and help us assess the effectiveness and viability of the new funding models for small markets.

The hindered drive toward internationalization: Thessaloniki (International) Film Festival

Abstract Originally a site for the promotion of the Greek film production, the Thessaloniki Film Festival, founded in 1960, gradually evolved to showcase international cinema, with a special emphasis on Balkan film. By focusing on the festival’s international aspirations, this account highlights certain under-researched parts of its history during which the festival offered parallel, competitive or not, programs of non-Greek films. In exploring this history, this article foregrounds tensions among key stakeholders, and maps these over the country’s broader sociopolitical dynamics, as well as in relation to broader developments in the European and international film festival scene.

Greek Cinema as European Cinema: Co-productions, Eurimages and the Europeanisation of Greek Cinema

ABSTRACT The article examines the extent to which Greek cinema has engaged with European co-productions and identifies the ways in which these have changed its production culture, as well as, indirectly, its form, content and mode of address. While mainly focusing on the 2010s, it also offers a historical account of co-production practices in Greece, especially since the establishment of Eurimages in 1989. It argues that the intensification of co-production activity that has become more evident in the last few years has been the result of a number of factors, including the continuing impact of European institutional frameworks, the reduction of national funds towards cinema, the emergence of a number of new producers trained in building co-productions and the critical success of a number of Greek films in prestigious festivals. The analysis draws on film studies, media industry and film policy studies as it aims to reveal the ways in which both Europe-wide and localised social, financial and professional conditions have affected the production culture in Greece, especially with regard to art/quality cinema, leading to the increased ‘Europeanisation’ of Greek cinema.

Film festivals: origins and trajectories

Film festivals: origins and trajectories The study of film festivals has grown significantly in the last decade, partly in response to the rapid international proliferation of film festivals in the past 15 years. Since 2009, Dina Iordanova’s Film Festival Yearbook anthologies have reoriented festival studies away from the Venice–Cannes–Berlin axis toward other countries, regions, and emphases. As a sign of the field’s maturity, Iordanova’s The Film Festival Reader (2013) reprints a number of canonical texts (Daniel Dayan’s ‘Looking for Sundance: The Social Construction of a Film Festival’, Julian Stringer’s ‘Regarding Film Festivals’, Thomas Elsaesser’s ‘Film Festival Networks: The New Topographies of Cinema in Europe’, etc.). Meanwhile, Marijke de Valck, Brendan Kredell, and Skadi Loist are assembling a textbook of new essays, Film Festivals: History, Theory, Method, Practice (forthcoming). But much research still tends to be about recent manifestations: about their functions as networks, their roles as alternative distribution and/or exhibition circuits, about their market sections, about particular institutional practices, such as programming, about festivals and activism, and so on. While not entirely absent (Wong 2011), historical concerns mostly contextualize more contemporary-focused analyses. This special issue on ‘Film festivals: origins and trajectories’ aims to bring historical concerns to the center of film festivals studies. Foregrounding the global dimensions of festivals, this issue brings together a number of in-depth historical studies of practices that have developed in vastly different parts of the world in the course of this almost century-long phenomenon. While shining light on lesser-known ‘peripheries’ of the festival circuit, this issue also outlines new approaches and methodologies for unearthing and discussing them. By bringing these case studies together, we seek to encourage a comparative exploration of the diversity of the festival phenomenon within distinct historical periods and sociopolitical systems. As such, this special issue ranges widely in both geography and historical periods. It covers topics from the pre-history of film festivals in Europe (Taillibert-Wäfler), to the recent growth of festivals in Chile (Peirano); from the pre-1966 phenomenon of ‘Film Weeks’ in the People’s Republic of China (Ma) to the functions of a current Turkish mobile film festival (Odabasi); from the grassroots emergence of the Melbourne Film Festival in the 1950s (Stevens) to the colonial origins of the Hong Kong International Film Festival (Cheung); from the changing mission of the Yugoslav Documentary and Short Film Festival during and after socialism (Jelenković) to the ongoing role of the Lima Film Festival in developing a national film culture in Peru (Barrow); and from the fitful international trajectory of the Thessaloniki Film Festival since the 1960s (Papadimitriou) to the concept of ‘festival memory’ in relation to the recently defunct Brisbane International Film Festival (Van Hemert).