EVENTS

LGFF 2009 EVENTS

SHOOTING IN GREECE

Free for the participants: - One 3-Day Pass for the festival - The book 'Shooting in Greece' - The book 'Made in Greece'   Also included: reception with some of the best Greek wines, delicious mezes and live Greek music!

Over the last 50 years, Greece has been one of the most popular countries for hosting international film productions. The first foreign production ever filmed in Greece was The Boy on a dolphin (1957); since then, almost 90 international movies were filmed in cities, villages and landscapes of Greece. Amongst these, very well known are Never on Sunday (1960), The guns of Navarone (1961), Alexis Zorbas (1964), Topkapi (1964), Fedora (1978), The Greek tycoon (1978), For your eyes only (1981), Summer lovers (1982), Pascali’s island (1988), Mediterraneo (1991), Captain Corelli’s mandolin (2001), The Bourne Identity (2002), Lara Croft (2003) and many more...

The “Shooting in Greece” informational networking event, in the context of the London Greek Film Festival offered free expert information on:

• - The country (geography, administrative divisions, road/ airport networks, climate, etc).

• - Greek companies dealing with production, post production, special effects, subtitling, distribution, public relations, etc).

• - Services and equipment provided for both production development and realization (helicopters, small aircraft, car rental companies, casting and model companies, etc).

• - Sites throughout Greece lending themselves to shooting (archaeological sites, coasts, cities and traditional villages, natural landscapes, etc).

• - New films, production proposals submission and financing!

Live Greek Music by:

ODYSSEUS AWARDS EVENING

A special evening, with special guests, including among others (in alphabetical order): Bruno Coppola (producer, director, filmmaker), Spyros Diamantis (Director of the Press Office, Greek Embassy in London), Leon Herbert (director, filmmaker),  Agatha Kalisperas (Director of the Hellenic Centre) and, Sofia Panayiotaki (Director of the Greek National Tourist Office in London).

The LGFF Jury, audience and www-visitors in our web site, will decide for the best films and scripts at the London Greek Film Festival 2009! Don't miss this amazing night with the great networking,  the Odysseus Awards ceremony and the fantastic guitar concert by Dimitris Dekavallas!

“a stunning performance” Dorset Guitar Society Described by Julian Bream as a ‘very exciting’ performer, Dimitris Dekavallas has always been considered one of the most talented guitarists of his age. He graduated from the Hellenic Conservatory of Athens in 2002 with 1st Prize for achieving the highest mark and in 2005 he started his Postgraduate Degree at the Royal Academy of Music in London under Micheal Lewin, Timothy Walker and John Mills, where he won the Tebutt Exhibition Scholarship Prize. In 2007 Dimitris   received both his Diploma of Postgraduate Performance and his L.R.A.M. Teaching Diploma with Distinction. He has performed as soloist in many international guitar festivals and already has a busy engagement schedule both in the UK and abroad. Dimitris is one of Making Music’s Recommended Artists, Philip & Dorothy Green Award 2008.

* Speakers (bios) at the 'Shooting in Greece' networking event

Sofia Panayiotaki [Director of the Greek National Tourist Office in London]. Sofia Panagiotaki joined GNTO in 2006, as the Director of the Japan & North Korea Office, promoting Greece to the Japanese, before becoming the Director of the UK & Ireland Office, Greece’s most important market, in 2009. Sofia, although very young, brings many years of experience within the travel industry not only working within the trade market but working as a travel journalist, both in Japan and in Greece. Prior to joining GNTO, Sofia grew in the field of productions while working for different production companies from 2001 to 2004. She established her career while employed by the National Japanese Television, when she remained the Executive Director of the HD Olympics production from 2002 to 2005, with more than 100 productions of documentaries in her credit. A graduate of Nagoya University, in Japan, Sofia holds an MA in «International Economic Development and Collaboration”, she speaks six languages fluently and as a person who is dedicated to professional growth and business networking she remained the Chairman of the European Travel Commission (ETC) in Asia.

Leon Herbert [director, filmmaker]. Leon is a passionate exponent of the Uta Hagen method, in which he was immersed while studying at RADA under Doreen Cannon. He has been in the movie business for 27 years both as an actor and filmmaker. His roles include Scandal, Aliens 3 and Batman and most notably as the first black Jesus Christ. After a successful acting career Leon turned to writing and has written 11 feature screenplays and directed numerous plays. He inspires and supports young filmmakers; as a result he has produced nine short films. In August 2005 he completed his first feature film Emotional Backgammon, a romantic thriller set in London. He is currently in postproduction with another feature film ‘Rene Dubois’, a noir detective story. His latest feature film is a street version of Julius Caesar and is currently in preproduction.

Bruno Coppola [director, producer]. Bruno has worked in film, theatre, radio and music in the US, England, and throughout Europe.  Early credits include Ass’t Director to David Fincher (music videos), several documentaries, films of plays, music producer in Italy on his cousin Francis Coppola’s film (“Godfather III”) and, for three years, chief radio drama writer at the BBC World Service in London, where he lives. Short films: His short film “Stuff That Bear!” was made in Romania and stars Carmen Ungureanu, Dragos Huluba, and Silviu Biris. Winner of the Kodak European Showcase for New Talent, it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, and has since played at more than 75 festivals in 13 countries, winning 16 awards including Best Director (twice), Best Cinematography (twice), Best Actress, and Best Short Film 11 times.  Based on a script by award-winning novelist Laureen Vonnegut, it was shot by cinematographer Oleg Mutu (winner Palme d’Or at Cannes 2007 for “4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days”, Best Film for “The Death of Mr Lazarescu” at Un Certain Regard at Cannes 2005, and the Golden Bear at Berlin 2004). It is probably the most widely-seen Eastern European short film ever made. His previous short, “Rules of Love”, starring Judy Greer and David Arrow, was shot in Los Angeles with multi-award-winning cinematographer Nancy Schreiber.  It played in 25 festivals world-wide, winning Best Short at the Alaska, Manchester, and Washington DC Festivals, the Open Award at the Cotswold Film Festival, and Film of the Day at the Festival Int’l de Cinema do Algarve in Portugal.  It is distributed by Shorts Int’l (in the UK) and Amaze Films (in the USA). Feature-length TV drama:  “Unknown Things” (released June 2007 by Village Roadshow) is a chilling, sinister love story… an extraordinary tale of mystery, romance, antique mechanical objects, and murder.  It stars Saskia Reeves, Paul Rhys, David Hayman, and Elsa Zylberstein.  The DP was Ken Westbury (Dennis Potter’s Director of Photography) and the editor was Tariq Anwar (“American Beauty”).  Coppola also produced the soundtrack, which features the orchestra of The Academy of St-Martin-in-the-Fields (“Amadeus”, “The English Patient”). Last year Coppola returned to Bucharest and completed principal photography on his feature-length TV drama, “The Dot Man”.  This USA/Romanian political thriller stars legendary UK actor/director/playwright Steven Berkoff, and many of Romania’s most talented and well-known actors including Maria Dinulescu (Winner Un Certain Regard 2007 for “California Dreaming”, and Palme d’Or for short “Trafic” 2004), Diana Dumbrava (Winner of 3 Best Actress awards for “Maria” 2003), and Dorel Visan, Romania’s most admired film actor. Most recently, he shot and edited an innovative, multi-location film of the National Theatre of Northern Greece’s production of “The Bacchae” by Euripides, starring one of the Greece’s most famous actors Stratos Georgoglou. It premiered at the London Greek Film Festival on 14th November 2008.

Haris Padouvas [producer]. Haris is President of Cinegram SA, one of the largest film production companies in Greece and Managing Director of Cinegram & Seven Stars an audiovisual production & Events Company formed by the seven most powerful production companies in Greece. He is in the film business the last 18 years and from 2000 he established 3 sister companies: Cinepos SA (post production house), Skinika (Construction Company for sets) and EAR2EAR (sound studio). He has accomplished within the last decade to have very powerful and capable departments within his production company such as: TV Commercials, Film & Documentary, TV – Series, Events, Casting and Location. He has successfully undertaken productions in many countries. These productions were characterized by their high demands under special conditions. He has closely co-operated with international advertising companies and film directors of worldwide reputation, and people acknowledged in the advertisement sector. He is the producer of successful feature films and documetnaries with international honors. His films which he produced or co produced numbers over 40 awards. Some of these films are: “Fugitive Pieces” by Jeremy Podeswa (Canadian – Greek Co-production, 2008), “My only sunshine” by Reha Erdem (Turkish-Bulgarian-Greek Co production, 2008), “O Jerusalem” by Elie Chouraqui (French-Italian-Greek-UK-USA-Israeli Co-production, 2006), “Uranya” by Costas Kapakas (Greece, 2006), “Brides” by Pantelis Voulgaris / Executive Producer: Martin Scorsese (Greek-USA-French Co-production, 2004), “A touch of Spice” by Tassos Boulmetis (Greek-Turkish Co-production, 2003).

Photini Economopoulou [producer]. Head of Feature Films and Documentaries, Producer in Cinegram S.A., Greece. Photini Economopoulou was appointed this position in 2006 and plays a key role in the top management of Cinegram. As head of this department she analyses and evaluates film and documentary proposals and oversees various aspects of the production process including research, rights negotiation, cost estimates. She supervises all projects and commission production assignments from the very early stage of development and design throughout their implementation and final handling but also acts as a Producer in many of the projects herself. Some of the projects she was actively involved in were: the awarded documentaries Qadir – An Afghan Ulysses” by Anneta Papathanassiou (2008) and “Secrets and Lies” by Stavros Stagos (2007) and Features such as “Uranya” by Costas Kapakas (2006), “Ikaru’s Dream” by Kostas Natsis (French-Greek Co-production, 2005), “A Tout de Suit” (Production Services in Greece, 2003) by Benoit Jacquot. She has also been involved in Govermental Coorporate videos presented in the biggest EXPO events internationally for the countries representation (EXPO 2005 in Aichi, Japan & EXPO 2008 in Saragossa, Spain). Her professional experience in film production starts from 1999 in the Industry of TV Commercial productions as an executive producer for national and international clients such as Publicis Hellas Adv, McCann Erickson Adv, Citroen, Vodafone, Spot Thompson, Athens 2004 Olympic Committee, Lowe Lintas, etc. Periodically, in the past she had organized cultural events like Dean Tavoulari’s (Production Designer in Hollywood) first expedition in Greece for the International Film Festival of Thessaloniki. She has a Masters in European Audiovisual Management (MBS, Spain) and a Bachelor degree in Sociology (Wane State University in Michigan, USA/ Deree – American College of Greece).

Thanasis Gavos [journalist] is one of the four Topology Media directors. He has worked as a journalist for the Greek Service of the BBC World Service, the Greek SKAI radio and TV, Radio Astra in Cyprus and kathimerini.gr news portal. He studied at the Department of Communication and Mass Media of the University of Athens and he lives in London. He is a member of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ).