Wednesday 5 December 2018

Απολογισμός δεκαετίας plus

Η Ελληνική Κινηματογραφική Λέσχη Λουξεμβούργου λειτουργεί ανελλιπώς ως Μη Κερδοσκοπική Οργάνωση από το 2002 προβάλλοντας Ελληνικές ταινίες των τελευταίων κυρίως δεκαετιών. Οι προβολές γίνονται μία φορά το μήνα στον κινηματογράφο Utopia και οι ταινίες είναι σε original version με αγγλικούς ή γαλλικούς υπότιτλους, ενώ ενίοτε προσκαλούνται και οι σκηνοθέτες των ταινιών για να προλογίσουν την ταινία τους και να δεχτούν ερωτήσεις από το κοινό.

Προς χάριν ενημέρωσης, παραθέτουμε εδώ όλες τις ταινίες που έχει προβάλλει η Ελληνική Κινηματογραφική Λέσχη Λουξεμβούργου ή αλλιώς CineClub Hellenique από το 2002. Οι προβολές συνεχίζονται κανονικά και τακτική ενημέρωση παρέχεται μέσω αυτού του Blog και του μηνιαίου μας Newsletter, στο οποίο μπορείτε να εγγραφείτε εδώ.

Monday 3 December 2018

Kissing? | Όντως φιλιούνται; [2016] by Yannis Korres


On Tuesday 11 December at 19:00 and on Wednesday 12 December at 21:00 the film KISSING? (Greece, 2016, 77 min, colour, English subtitles) by Yannis Korres will be screened in cinema Utopia. The film not suitable for children under 16 years.

Synopsis


Just before turning thirty Danny and Stella belong to an undefined generation, shaken by the financial crisis at a time they should be prospering and set adrift in its aftermath.

But while the confusion and chaos of the world passes them by, Danny thinks he’s too good for it, Stella thinks it’s not good enough for her and the question remains: Are they good enough for each other?

This is the chronicle of their relationship that reveals the portrait of their generation with sarcastic humour and sincerity.


Cast


Thanasis Petropoulos, Iro-Eleni Bezou, Omiros Poulakis

Trailer


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbB4k14cbf4


What did the press say


http://greekfilmfestival.com.au/program/417/kissing


A few words about the director


He was born in Athens in 1986. He studied Filmmaking at the Film and Television Department of New York College. He then worked on short and feature films as an assistant director. Kissing? is his feature film debut.

Click 'Read More' for Greek version.

Thursday 1 November 2018

Drama short films festival

Drama Short Film Festival travels to Luxembourg: this month we are bringing you the best short Greek films that were awarded prizes in the 2017 Short Film Festival in Drama.

Please note that this time Cine Club Hellénique makes an exception by bringing variety in our two-day screenings. In order to be able to screen every single film that won a prize or a distinction in "2017 Short Film Festival in Drama", we have a different programme for each of the two days of our screenings. You can pick the day that inspires you the most, or join us both days!

Screenings are taking place at Utopia Cinema, as usual. Program as follows:

Tuesday, November 20 at 19.00 

Play / Vangelis LIBEROPOULOS / 32 min
Profiterol / Chrysanthi KARFI COI / 13 min
The Method / Charis GIOULATOS / 13 min
Life after / Christos SAGIAS / 17 min
Mad Dogs / Danae PAPAIOANNOU / 12 min
The Ticket / Haris STATHOPOULOS / 17 min
Ourania / Despoina KOURTI / 16 min
The insignificant of Eleni Pavli / Μichael HAPESHIS /16 min

(total time 136 min)


Wednesday, November 21 at 21.00

Goodnight / Thanos KERMITSIS / 35 min
Brazuca / Faidonas GKRETSIKOS /19 min
Testing Greta / Abbie LUCAS / 11 min
Maneki Neko / Manolis MAVRIS / 19 min
Dam / Giorgos TELTZIDIS / 17 min
Freezer / Dimitris NAKOS / 16 min
Christmas Anti-Fable / Efthimios CHATZIS / 26 min

(total time 143 min)


Click 'Read More' for Greek version.

Saturday 6 October 2018

Polyxeni | Ποξυξένη (2017) by Dora Masklavanou

On Tuesday 16 October at 19:00 and on Wednesday 17 October at 21:00 the film Polyxeni (Greece, 2017, 100min, colour) by Dora Masklavanou will be screened in cinema Utopia in Greek and Turkish original language with English subtitles. The film is not suitable for children under 16 years.

Synopsis


A family of strangers, a foster homeland and a doomed romance. She was a pauper and an heiress. A girl whose greatest misfortune was to be blessed. Inspired by true events.

In 1955 a couple of prominent Greeks living in Istanbul adopt an orphan Greek girl from the town of their origin. They offer her a powerful family name and ensure her devotion. Twelve-year-old Polyxeni is separated from her younger brother. She embarks on a new life and a future that looks bright. She receives an education, comes of age and falls in love. She has a lust for life, while unsuspicious of the devious plan of annihilation that others are weaving behind her back, targeting her large inheritance.

Cast


Katia Goulioni, Özgür Emre Yıldırım, Lydia Fotopoulou, Akilas Karazisis, Alexandros Mylonas, Ivonni Maltezou, Errìkos Lìtsis, Argiris Pantazaras, Costas Xikominos, Vassilis Koukalani

Tuesday 18 September 2018

The Son of Sofia | Ο Γιος της Σοφίας [2017] by Elina Psykou

On Tuesday 18 September at 19:00 and on Wednesday 19 September at 21:00 the film The Son of Sofia (Greece/ France/Bulgaria, 2017, 110min, colour) by Elina Psykou will be screened in cinema Utopia in the original Greek and Russian version with English subtitles. The film not suitable for children under 16 years.

Synopsis


Athens, 2004 summer Olympic Games. 11-year-old Misha arrives from Russia to live with his mother, Sofia. What he doesn’t know is that there is a father waiting for him there. While Greece is living the Olympic dream, Misha will get violently catapulted into the adult world, riding on the dark side of his favourite fairy tales.

“Son of Sofia” is a violent, absurd, urban fairy tale about the inability to express and accept love. It's a story about the clandestine violence of family love and at the same time a story about how we raise our children and how our homeland grooms future citizens. Two men vie for one woman’s attention, just like two different worlds stake their claim to the same society.

In that sense, it is essentially about identity formation: national, religious, sexual, linguistic and political. The historical background is the summer of 2004, when Athens was hosting the Olympic Games. It’s the moment when the country’s socioeconomic rise had reached its peak and - in hindsight - the moment that marked the beginning of the end of Greece's national innocence, an experience similar to the coming of age of son of Sofia. At the end of the film, nothing will ever be the same - neither for Greece nor for the young protagonist.


Tuesday 19 June 2018

Dolphin Man [2017] by Lefteris Charitos

On Tuesday 19 June at 19:00 and on Wednesday 20 June at 21:00 the documentary Dolphin Man (Greece/Canada/France/Japan, 2017, 78 min, colour, English subtitles) by Lefteris Charitos will be screened in cinema Utopia. The film is also suitable for children over 12 years.

Synopsis


Dolphin Man draws us into the world of Jacques Mayol, capturing his compelling journey and immersing viewers into the sensory and transformative experience of free-diving. From the Mediterranean to Japan and from India to the Bahamas, we meet Mayol's closest friends and family, including his children and world free-diving champions, to reveal the portrait of a man who reached the limits of the human body and mind, not just to break records but hoping to discover the deeper affinity between human beings and the sea.

Narrated by Jean-Marc Barr, the actor who famously portrayed Mayol in The Big Blue, the film weaves together rare film archive from the 1950s onwards, with stunning contemporary underwater photography, to discover how the 'dolphin man' revolutionized free-diving and brought a new consciousness to our relationship with the sea and our inner-selves.

Trailer



Tuesday 22 May 2018

Up to the last drop | Μέχρι την τελευταία σταγόνα [2017] Υ. Avgeropoulos ----- Letters to Germany | Γράμματα στη Γερμανία [2015] by A. Boskoitis

On Tuesday 22 May at 19:00 and on Wednesday 23 May at 21:00 the documentary Up to the last drop (Greece, 2017, 58 min, colour, English subtitles) by Yorgos Avgeropoulos will be screened in cinema Utopia. 

The evenings will start with the short film Letters to Germany (Greece, 2015, 14 min, no dialogue, B&W) by Antonis Boskoitis, who will be with us to present his film. Both films are also suitable for children over 14 years.

Synopsis of the documentary


As Europe is going through a crisis that is not solely economical but also a crisis of moral values, millions of European citizens demand a response to a crucial question: is water for the European Union a commercial product or a human right? Until today, the European Institutions have not given a clear answer. The EU has still to recognize water as a human right, as the UN did in 2010.

At the same time, cities, regions and countries all around the world are increasingly rejecting the water privatization model they had adopted for years and are remunicipalizing services in order to take back public control over water and sanitation management. In Europe, the majority of the cases have been recorded in France, home of the most powerful and influential private water multinational companies of the planet. Nine cases have been recorded in Germany.

Although Berlin and Paris have recently taken back public control over their water services, the financial and political European elites are demanding from Greece, Portugal and Ireland to privatize their public water systems. Provisions about water can be found in every M.o.U, Greece, Ireland and Portugal have signed with the Troika and it’s a common stipulation provided in every bailout agreement signed between the debt-ridden countries and their lenders.

Up To The Last Drop follows the money and the corporate interests during a period of four years in thirteen cities of six EU countries. It’s a documentary film about water that reflects contemporary European values and the quality of the current European democracy.

Tuesday 24 April 2018

The Other Me | Έτερος εγώ [2016] by Sotiris Tsafoulias

On Tuesday 24 April at 19:00 and on Wednesday 25 April at 21:00 the thriller The Other Me  (Greece, 2016, 101 min, colour) by Sotiris Tsafoulias will be screened in cinema Utopia in the original Greek version with English subtitles. The film is not suitable for children.

Synopsis


Athens 2015. A professor of criminology with Asperger’s syndrome tries to solve five completely unrelated murders whose only link is quotes from Pythagoras. Alongside him on this journey is Marcel De Chaf, a professor of mathematics, who as another “deus ex machina” will lead the professor towards the solution to the mystery. The closer he gets to solving the murders, the more he enters dangerous paths. Will he be able to solve the mystery and discover the guilty ones?

Avec: Pygmalionas Dadakaridis, Ioanna Kolliopoulou, Manos Vakoussis, Dimitris Kataleifos, Yorgos Chrysostomou, François Cluzet

Trailer 


More information

Monday 19 March 2018

From the Earth to the Moon | Από τη Γη στη Σελήνη (2013) by Angelos Spartalis


On Tuesday 13 March at 19:00 and on Wednesday 14 March at 21:00 the first and only long Greek animated film From the Earth to the Moon (Greece, 2013, 86 min, colour) by Angelos Spartalis will be screened in cinema Utopia in the original Greek version with English subtitles. Τhe director will be present for a Q&A after the screenings. The film is suitable for children. 

Synopsis


In America, 100 years before the moon landing of Apollo 11, the bellicose bemoan their fates because the federal War is over and they all have fallen into inaction. They are reminiscent of the glorious past and feeling uncomfortable with the mournful clothes remaining unused in the closets and the green grass and the cotton growing back in the fields, as Verne writes!

At that exact moment, the president of the Gun Club, Impey Barbicane, provided the solution by announcing that he has a plan to fire a cannonball to the Moon, an act that also constitutes the first substantial contact of man with the satellite of the Earth and will glorify the 36 United States of America all over the world. An implacable enemy of the president and a strange Frenchman who will demand and eventually manage to get into the cannonball and travel to the Moon are only a few of the elements that make the rest of the story moving and hilarious.

With the voices of Manos Vakousis, Aleksandros Logothetis, Stratos Tzortzoglou, Dimitris Starovas.

Songs performed by Dionysis Savopoulos and Psarantonis

Thursday 15 February 2018

America Square | Πλατεία Αμερικής (2018) by Yannis Sakaridis

On Tuesday 20 February at 19:00 and on Wednesday 21 February at 21:00 the film America Square (Greece, 2016, 86 min, colour) by Yannis Sakaridis will be screened in cinema Utopia in the original Greek version with English subtitles. The film is not suitable for children.

Synopsis


Athens 2016. The complexities of immigration are exposed when four lives collide within the backdrop of Amerika square.

 Two Greek friends, along with a Syrian ex-Military doctor, an African singer and a human trafficker each navigate the refugees' crisis in Athens. When one of their actions becomes the unthinkable, the others are forced to work together to escape the consequences. Mixing a kinetic visual style with ripped-from-the-headlines storytelling, Amerika Square is an unflinching look at the mass migration economy—where “borders are business.”

You can read more about the film on the Official Page and you can see the trailer here. The film is chosen as the official proposal for the Oscars for Greece this year.

Cast: Makis Papadimitriou, Yannis Stankoglou, Vasilis Koukalani, Xenia Danya, Sultan Amir, Rea Pediaditaki, Themis Bazaka, Errikos Litsis, Dorothea Howlader, Petros Santovito

Friday 19 January 2018

Wednesday 04:45 by Alexis Alexiou

On Tuesday 23 January at 19:00 and on Wednesday 24 January at 21:00 the thriller WEDNESDAY 4:45 (Greece, 2015, 116 min, colour) by Alexis Alexiou will be screened in cinema Utopia in the original Greek version with English subtitles. The film is not suitable for children.

Synopsis


Stelios is a serious jazz lover whose dream of running a music venue is crumbling during the onset of Greece's debt crisis. He owes a fortune, the club isn't earning enough to make payments and the loan shark called has decided that Stelios has a day to pay him back in full.

In a vortex of adultery, drug abuse, violence, guilt and self-deceit, Stelios has a few hours left to save his club, salvage his crumbling marriage, battle the mafia loan-sharks, baptize his employee's kid and show up at school to receive his son's report card as a responsible parent.

Cast: Stelios Mainas, Dimitris Tzoumakis, Adam Bousdoukos, Giorgos Simeonidis, Mimi Branescu, Maria Nafpliotou, Mimi Branescu

Xamou | Ξα μου (2016) by Clio Fanouraki

On Tuesday 12 December at 19:00 and on Wednesday 13 December at 21:00 the film Xamou (Greece, 2016, 87 min, colour) by Clio Fanouraki will be screened in cinema Utopia in the original version with English subtitles. The film is not suitable for children.
Synopsis
 
“Xa mou” means “to do whatever I feel like” in the Cretan idiom. Johnny, the film’s main character, is a French man who lives in Crete. He unexpectedly loses his job, but he is reborn when he discovers the small pleasures of everyday life.
When Johnny suddenly loses his job as a hotel manager amid Greece’s economic crisis, his response is to retreat into his own cave. Drawn out by his wife and children, and carried away throughout Crete by circumstance and fellow travellers, Johnny finds himself in unfamiliar, unpredictable and often invigorating experiences, bringing him face to face with his own willpower and with all the things that surround us that we’ve stopped being able to see.
Based on the Cretan land, which constitutes not only a field of action but an organic part of the film, and, and through the reminiscence of the “allegory of the cave” by Plato, “XAMOU” is not a film about the Greek crisis. It is an optimistic film about all the crises, those who refute the established and force us to reinvent ourselves and our relationships with people, land… and the world around us.