CLASSIC CINEMA SECTION

Iconic Duo Vassilis Vafeas

Classics O’Clock VI, Saturday March 4, 18:00

Introduction with the director Vassilis Vafeas

English title:

The Cosmic Dissecting Room Show

Original title:

-

Director:

Vassilis Vafeas

Country:

Greece

Genre:

art essay

Year:

1993

Length:

61’

Cast:

Gregory Semitecolo, Nephele Anthopoulos

A quote for the film:

-

Selective list of festivals and awards:

35th Panorama of European Cinema

A surrealist poetic film that juxtaposes two worlds, that of a pioneering artist Gregory Semitecolo with the world of the inhabitants of a frontier island where the first decides to present a visual event. These two worlds, although seemingly opposed, through the process of artistic creation and expression coexist in harmony. The film premiered at The Athens Concert Hall as a multishow in 1993. 25 years later it was recommended by a famous visual artist, Robert Kennedy, for a 2012 tribute to him by the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow. He chose 3 films: The Cosmic Dissecting Room Show by Vassilis Vafeas, Symbiopsychotaxiplasm by William Greaves and Socialism by Jean-Luc Godard

English title:

Now and Then: My New Smyrna

Original title:

ΤΩΡΑ ΚΑΙ ΤΟΤΕ: Η ΝΕΑ ΣΜΥΡΝΗ ΜΟΥ

Director:

Vassilis Vafeas

Country:

Greece

Genre:

creative documentary

Year:

2022

Length:

61’

Selective list of festivals and awards:

35th Panorama of European Cinema

It is a creative documentary where, through an impressionistic approach, touches of words and images compose a journey of individual and collective memory with references to the social, political and cultural history of the place from 1922 until today.

Director’s bio:

Vasilis Vafeas was born in 1944 in Alexandria, Egypt. He studied chemistry at the Universities of Athens and film at the Sorbonne and Stavrakos school. He began his career in the period 1973-1977 with two short-length films and three documentaries, and debuted with the masterpiece "Eastern region" in 1979. In his films are always distinct experiential elements but discontinued or gradually outweighed by the advent of the imaginary that gives a more complex dimension of reality. Vafeas is fascinated by everyday human stories while at the same time attracted by tipping as it focuses on what happens to the characters of his films when collapsing cornerstones of society such as a good job or an arranged marriage.