SIFF to screen Greek master Angelopoulos’ films
THE Shanghai International Film Festival has announced that it will screen the representative works of Greek film master Theo Angelopoulos as part of its “Tribute to Film Masters” program.
The festival will be held from June 15 to 24, and both world classics and new productions will be screened.
Angelopoulos died in a road accident seven years ago in Athens. At that time he was working on his latest movie “The Other Sea.”
Last year, a forest fire burned down his residence, and many manuscripts, letters and materials were lost — a big loss to the world of cinema.
Proceeds from the film exhibition in Shanghai will be spent on the digital restoration of Angelopoulos’ movies.
Born in 1935, Angelopoulos studied cinema at the Institute of Advanced Cinematographic Studies in Paris. His childhood experience of the Nazi occupation of Greece during World War II and the 1946-49 Greek civil war had a profound influence on his movies.
Known for his sad and slow directing style, his movies usually tackle the themes of history, war, politics and humanity.
In a career spanning over 40 years, Angelopoulos directed 13 feature films, including “Reconstruction,” “Landscape in the Mist” and “Alexander the Great.” Many of them won awards at international film festivals.
In 1995, he received the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival for “Ulysses’ Gaze.” Three years later, “Eternity and a Day” won him the Palme d’Or at the festival.
Angelopoulos’ movies boast a distinctive episodic style of long and complex shots. His 1975 drama film “The Travelling Players” has only 80 sequence shots for a length of 230 minutes.
The festival will screen seven of his movies: “Broadcast,” “Reconstruction,” “The Hunters,” “The Beekeeper,” “The Dust of Time,” “Landscape in the Mist,” and the “Trilogy: The Weeping Meadow.”
The short film “Broadcast” is Angelopoulos’ directorial venture while he made his mark in his first feature “Reconstruction.”
“The Beekeeper” marks the first collaboration between Angelopoulos and celebrated Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni. It is a love tale of an ordinary man, but it also reflects the tremendous social changes in Greece.
The epic film “The Dust of Time” features lavish scenes as it was shot in six countries such as Germany, Poland and the United States.
The story of “Landscape in the Mist” is inspired by the news of a child who leaves home to look for his father.
The historical film “Trilogy: The Weeping Meadow” is a tragic tale inspired by Greek mythology and philosophy. With poetic and surreal shots, it chronicles the history of Greece.