"From the Book to the Screen": The 16th AOAFF powered by DEI is partnering with the Hellenic Foundation for Books and Culture for two special screenings
The 16th Athens Open Air Film Festival powered by DEI and co-organized by the Culture, Sports, and Youth Organization of the City of Athens (OPANDA), continues for a second year with great enthusiasm its partnership with the Hellenic Foundation for Books and Culture (HFBC) for two special screenings and invite you to HFBC’s new garden at the House of Books (134–136 Ermou Street, Thiseio) for two film screenings dedicated to the relationship between cinema and literature.
FROM THE BOOK TO THE SCREEN
Athens Open Air Film Festival powered by DEI& HFBC partnership
Wednesday 8 & Thursday 9 July
House of Books, in the garden (134-136 Ermou Str., Thiseio)
Arrival Time 20h30 | Film Introductions 21h00 | Screening Time 21h30
FREE ENTRANCE in order of priority
On Wednesday 8th and on Thursday 9th of July, two of the greatest films based on books will be screened: “HAPPY DAY” and “THE RIVER”. The films will be introduced by Dimitris A. Christopoulos, Ph.D. in Modern Greek Literature and author, and Nikos Bakounakis, President of HFBC, respectively.
FROM THE BOOK TO THE SCREEN
WEDNESDAY 8 JULY | HFBC Garden, at the House of Books (134-136 Ermou Str., Thiseio)
HAPPY DAY (1976, 105’)
20h30 Arrival Time (free entrance, in order of priority)
21h00 Introduction – Discussion about the book and the film: Dimitris Α. Christopoulos, Ph.D. In Modern Greek Literature - author
21h30 Screening of the film
Directed by: Pantelis Voulgaris | Starring: Stavros Kalaroglou, Stathis Giallelis, Giorgos Moshidis, Zorz Sarri, Konstantinos Tzoumas, Nikos Bousdoukos
50th anniversary screening from the iconic film, featuring the recently restored 4K copy by the Greek Film Archive Foundation. The screening is dedicated to Giorgos Panousopoulos (director of photography) and Dionysis Savvopoulos (music composer).
English Subtitles
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the initial release of one of the most significant works in Greek cinema. And now, more clearly than ever, one can recognize in Pantelis Voulgaris’s third feature film a great director standing before his masterpiece. Based on “The Plague”, the remarkable 1972 novel by Andreas Frangias, as well as on experiences from his own period of exile, Voulgaris sets the film’s action on a small, barren island that serves as a concentration camp for a group of political prisoners who are forced, in addition to the daily chores and the punishments they endure, to now prepare a welcome celebration for the brief visit of some important guests.
From the deceptively carefree title, the blazing Greek sun, and the deep-blue sea—which stand here as agonizing witnesses to the atrocities unfolding—to the coercively celebratory atmosphere of a festivity built upon sweat and anguish, “Happy Day” navigates through tragic ironies. And Voulgaris, without naming or explaining, allowing the associations and memories of History to resonate on their own within the film, directs a ritual of absurdity and exhaustion, a Sisyphean struggle for survival, and, above all, a collective drama whose catharsis comes in the form of a heart-wrenching kiss—a moment of liberation and resistance—in one of the most beautiful scenes in Greek cinema. Loukas Katsikas
THURSDAY 9 JULY | HFBC Garden, at the House of Books (134-136 Ermou Str., Thiseio)
THE RIVER (1951, 99΄)
20h30 Arrival Time (free entrance, in order of priority)
21h00 Introduction – Discussion about the book and the film: Nikos Bakounakis, President of the HFBC
21h30 Screening of the film
Directed by: Jean Renoir | Starring: Nora Swinburne, Esmond Knight, Arthur Shields, Suprova Mukerjee, Patricia Walters
Greek Subtitles
Based on the novel of the same title by author Rumer Godden, an autobiographical chronicle of her childhood memories in Bengal, the “River” remains to this day the most mystagogical culmination of an entire body of work. For the first time in his career, the creator of “The Great Chimera” and “The Rules of the Game” takes the archetypal contrasts that have been the driving force behind most of his works and sets them in orbit around the same cycle of creation, coming of age, love, and loss—the cycle of life.
Through his radiant lens, India takes on the dimensions of a landscape mythical and still untouched by man, an earthly Eden of lost innocence, but also a symbolic passage toward the realization and acceptance of existence as an eternal ritual that transcends everything and takes on a cosmic character. Someone will be born, someone will die, someone will love, someone will be hurt, night will turn to day and back to night, the seasons will continue to alternate in the same track, the river’s waters will flow ceaselessly and without return.
Directed in a serene and reverential style, Renoir’s lyrical feast conceals, behind its technicolor palette, one of the most ravishing achievements in cinematography that cinema has ever seen. It was the first in a series of films through which the director bid farewell to the realism of his earlier career, exploring no longer aspects of real life, but its projections and representations through art. Loukas Katsikas
Subtitling: Yiannis Papadakis - projecT:TLING.
FREE ENTRANCE (in order of priority)
With the tasting experience of Elite Crackers.
The Hellenic Foundation for Books and Culture (HFBC) was founded in 2024. Its objectives are to promote Greek literature in Greece and abroad, to highlight the book as a means of education, culture, and entertainment, and to promote Greek culture and the Greek language internationally. HFBC is supervised and funded by the Ministry of Culture.
The 16th Athens Open Air Film Festival, powered by DEI, is co-organized by the Organization for Culture, Sports and Youth of the Municipality of Athens and under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture.
