Samos News

The Sixth Festival of Mediterranean Documentaries on Samos, which will run to Wednesday, could be better defined as a film feast as it lacks formal competition. The Festival is organized by the Association of Greek Directors and Producers and director Roviros Manthoulis is the guest of honor.

“There are no restrictions on the program. Our screenings may range from 1960s films to documentaries which are still being filmed” said director Vassilis Vafeas, president of the Association of Greek Directors and Producers, while pointing out that peculiarity of the Samos festival. The Festival, for the first time, shall present four films still in the production phase which includes: Avra Georgiou's “In the Spirit of Pan,”; Athina-Rachil Tsangari's "Making of the Olympic Games"; Nikos Zoiopoulos's "I Want to Go Home” and Nedim Hazar's "Greeks of Turkey." Tsangari has also contributed towards the opening and closing ceremony videos of the Olympic Games.

Katerina Patroni, Irina Boiko, Vassilis Vafeas, Yiannis Leontaris, Mathios Yiamalakis, Paschalis Papapetrou, Loukia Rikaki, Thodoros Kalesis, Lakis Papastathis, Maria Yiannouli, Nikos Alevras, Despina Karvela, Kyriakos Katzourakis and Dimitris Sofianopoulos are participant Greek filmmakers.

Roviros Manthoulis, the guest of honor for the festival this year, has had plenty of experience in the field of documentaries. His films shall also be screened during the festival such as “Sicily, the Bleeding Land” (1975), “The Gypsies (The new Castilians of Andalusia)” (1989) and “The Blues of the South” (1973). “Truth and the Cinema: A discussion of national identity and the cinema in Greece” with the director shall also be organized as part of the festival.

Apart from films from Greece, films by over 22 filmmakers from Cyprus, Lebanon, France, Spain, Israel and Turkey will be screened during the Sixth Festival of Mediterranean Documentaries, linked between each other by music.

The festival’s opening saw films such as Ventura Pons’s documentary “El Gran Gato,” which examines memories about the composer, lyrics writer and vocalist Javier Patricio “Gato” Perez, by presenting a concert in which some of Spain’s best-known singers interpret 15 of his songs.