by Fotis Tzanakis
On the evening of July 15th, in Athens, Greece, at Lycabettus Hill, overlooking the Acropolis embraced by the city lights, the San Francisco Greek Film Festival (SFGFF) celebrated its 21st anniversary.
The longest-running Greek film festival in the U.S., SFGFF stands proudly by its mission to elevate Hellenic culture, history, and language in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. Since its founding, it has showcased a plethora of Greek and Cypriot movies, hosted numerous filmmakers as guests, and inspired and entertained thousands of attendees.
“There are phenomenal ideas coming out of Greece, and we are very honored because we provide the opportunity for these films to be shown around the world, and that’s our main goal. And to educate even Greeks that there are phenomenal movies out there created by Greeks under very difficult conditions,” Mr. Kleon Skourtis, SFGFF Executive Director, told ASVOF.
Every year, between 300 and 400 titles by Greek and Cypriot filmmakers are submitted to SFGFF. A committee watches and rates all the films, and the final 35 selected titles are categorized by theme/genre.
Mr. Skourtis pointed out that it is very difficult to limit their selections and expressed the wish that they could showcase more films. He also highlighted the importance of the festival in promoting Greek culture and transmitting the pulse of modern Greece to the whole world.
“We always try to include movies with themes we haven’t already shown. We don’t want to show twelve movies about the bad economy in Greece, we’ll show one of them; we don’t want to show eight movies about migration, we’ll show one of them. All films we showcase have something special. We try to bring movies to educate people, movies that are a little bit on the edge because we want to inform the public about what’s happening in Greece,” Mr. Skourtis said.
Discussing the genres explored in this year’s festival, he noted that its range of topics was much broader than in previous years.
“In the past we had the genre of the bad economy, one movie after the other about the economy. Then we had a big genre about the suicides that were happening in Greece. Then of course we had the genre of COVID. Once we’ve passed these genres, people now start opening up to other ideas.”
The Summer Party, also the first part of the SFGFF in Athens, concluded with award presentations.
The SFGFF Best Documentary Astron Award went to Homeland Sickness and was presented to Vasia Tzotzopoulou, granddaughter of the documentary’s subject Despina Tsouflidou.
The award for Best Narrative Feature was a tie between the films The Summer With Carmen and Fonissa. Accepting the award were Carmen actors Yorgos Tsiantoulas and Andreas Labropoulos, along with Lina Yannopoulou from the production company Argonauts, and Fonissa producer Costas Lambropoulos.
The second part of the SFGFF took place at the Anesis summer theater on July 16th with the screening of The Promotion, in the inaugural collaboration of the SFGFF with Feelgood Entertainment Greece.
The Promotion follows Nikos’ journey from Athens to Thessaloniki for the ceremony of his promotion at the University where he teaches cinema. Told in an intellectually stimulating and highly imaginative way, illuminated by Alexandros Logothetis’s captivating performance as Nikos, The Promotion takes the viewer for a ride in a unique father-son relationship that makes real the vital importance of communication in family life. For his portrayal of Nikos, Alexandros Logothetis received the Best Performance Narrative Feature Award.
“There were many things that intrigued me about the role, but what I identified with was Nikos’ eternal passion in what he does and his enduring faith in art,” Mr. Logothetis told ASVOF.
Stay up to date with all the activities of the San Francisco Greek Film Festival at https://grfilm.com/
