World-acclaimed director Theodore (Theo) Angelopoulos died last Tuesday at the age of 76, after being seriously injured in a traffic accident and while filming in Drapetsona, near Pireaus. Winner of several international film awards, Angelopoulos had started shooting his latest film, The Other Sea, earlier this month.
Angelopoulos was born in Athens in 1935. He studied Law at the Athens University, and at the beginning of the ‘60s he moved to France where he followed courses in ethnography and studied film at the Institute of Advanced Cinematographic Studies in Paris. Upon returning to Greece, he initially worked as a film critic and in 1970 he completed his first feature film Anaparastassi(Reconstruction).
His next three films make up a trilogy on the history of contemporary Greece:Meres tou ’36 (Days of '36, 1972), O Thiassos (Travelling Players, 1975) and Oi Kynighoi (The Hunters, 1977), followeed by Megalexandros in 1980. With these films some of the thematic and stylistic constants of Angelopoulos' cinema were established - the weight of history, a clinical examination of power, a Brechtian theatricality, wherein the individual has no importance with respect to the group, a rejection of conventional narration in favour of an intentionally broken one, in which stationary cameras and sequence-length shots create an alternative sense of time.
Taxidi sta Kithira (Voyage to Cythera), in 1984, won the Cannes Festival International Critics’ Award for best screenplay, followed by O Melissokomos(The Beekeeper), in 1986, starring Marcello Mastroianni. With Topio stin Omichli (Landscape in the Mist) in 1988 he won the Silver Lion at the Venice Mostra.
The Culture and Tourism ministry and the Thessaloniki Cinema Festival will establish an International "Theodoros Angelopoulos" Award in memory of the Greek film director, according to an announcement by the ministry. The award will be given every November in the framework of the Thessaloniki International Film Festival.
The Embassy of Greece and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, have presented a Tribute to Angelopoulos with the title: “Theo Angelopoulos: History and Myths” in 2006 and the PANORAMA OF GREEK CINEMA will continue the screening of his films in the future. (Last screening was: “Ulysses’ Gaze”).

News of Angelopoulos' death has been publicized in various international newspapers. Click the below links to read more about this prolific and inspiring Greek director:
New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/movies/theo-angelopoulos-greek-film-director-dies-at-76.html

Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/newssearch/search.html?st=theo+Angelopoulos&submit=Submit

CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/25/world/europe/greece-film-director-dies/index.html

Euronews: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2TDXDWheeE

The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/jan/25/theo-angelopoulos

Odysseas Elytis Honored for Contributions to Hispanic Literature

The Embassy of Greece has partnered with the European Division, the Hispanic Division, and the Poetry and Literature Center of the Library of Congress to present: "Odysseas Elytis and the Hispanic World"

featuring the prestigious speakers: Pedro Serrano - Poet, Critic, and Professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and Rei Berroa - Poet, Critic, and Professor of George Mason University

Odysseas Elytis, the leading Greek poet of his generation and a Nobel Prize winner, influenced Hispanic literature in the late 1930s and 1940s with his exuberant style, adding a further level of passion to the established poetic romanticism of the day. In this presentation, which commemorates the centennial of Elytis' birth, poets Pedro Serrano and Rei Berroa will discuss the Nobel Laureate's importance within the Hispanic world of letters.

The event will take place on Friday January 27, 2012 from 6:30-8:30pm in the West Dining Room, James Madison Building, 6th floor at the Library of Congress - 101 Independence Avenue S.E., Washington D.C. Kindly rsvp to Robert Casper (202) 707-5394 or roca@loc.gov

Greece's Success in Food Exports

Contrary to common perceptions, Greece exports considerable quantities of traditional products. In fact, the country's exports have registered a significant increase in 2011, following the pattern of a continuous annual increment recorded during the past six years. Greek exports are primarily based on alimentary products, which represent 17% of the total export value.

Oil, vegetable fat, preserved fruit and other packed food exports have recorded the most noteworthy increase in the past year, compared to 2010. Fruit and nuts, fish, conserved vegetables, dairy products and alcoholic beverages are some of the staple products which figure at the top of the list.

Germany, the US, and Canada are some of the countries that import the largest proportion of Greek products, especially olive oil, wine, and dairy products (like yogurt and feta cheese), which may be partially attributed to the existence of extended Greek Diaspora communities there.

Greece has recently found some new important trade partners in Russia and China. The amounts of wine and especially olive oil imported from Greece both countries has shown a dramatic increase over the past three years, placing them in fifth and eight position respectively in the list of olive oil export destinations for the first semester of 2011.

The next time you visit your local grocery store or wine shop, be sure to look for Made In Greece products like olive oil, yogurt, feta cheese, and of course, ouzo!
Source: The Greek News Agenda

The Impact of Modern Genetics in Our Lives

The Embassy of Greece is proud to present the next installment in its series "Health, Nutrition, and Fitness: From Ancient to Modern Times" titled "The Impact of Modern Genetics in Our Lives".On Thursday, January 19 from 7pm-8:30pm, Dr. Constantine A. Stratakis will present a lecture at the Embassy of Greece. Dr. Stratakis is currently the Scientific Director of the Division of Intramural Research (DIR) at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Dr. Stratakis will lecture on how sequencing of the human genome and identification of genetic risks, polymorphisms, and links can change our lives. Medicine is an ever changing art, continuously adjusting to the shifting principles of philosophy and constant discoveries of science; as it was beautifully said by Hippocrates: “…η δε ιητρικη νυν τε και αυτικα ου το αυτο
ποιεει...” (“…medicine does not do the same thing at this moment and the next…”). In the mid 1980ʼs, two advances revolutionized medicine in a way that is comparable only to some of the most important events in the approximately 3,000 years of its history. The first was theoretical; it was the introduction of the concept of “positional cloning”, the idea that one can identify genes for human disease without knowing anything, or with knowing very little, about their function. The second was technical; the method of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) made DNA, the genome in essence, available to biomedical researchers and, more importantly, clinicians.

These developments took Medicine by surprise: fresh in its history were the great discoveries of neuroscience, and even more contemporary and potent, the influence of molecular biology. Cancer medicine and traditional human genetics were the fields that benefited most from the first applications of the new genomic concepts and technologies. Almost two decades later, and after the first successful applications of positional cloning in Medical Genetics with the identification of a variety of genes for multiple syndromes, the Human and many other
genomes were sequenced. Thousands of genes are now known to affect almost every part of the human body; clinical practice is now confronted with the “genomically” influenced medicine.

Τhe lecture will conclude with another of the aphorisms attributed to Hippocrates; "life is short, the art long, opportunity fleeting, experiment treacherous, judgment difficult." As Richard Levin recently wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine “life is longer now, but the art is longer still”. Indeed, the unabated advances in genetics made our art much longer!

We welcome you to what is sure to be a fascinating and informative event with one of the foremost experts in the field! Kindly RSVP to rsvpculture@greekembassy.org

Greek Films Celebrated at International Festivals

The 62nd Berlin International Film Festival has announced the world premiere of a number of films, including Spiros Stathoulopoulos' Meteora, a film about the secret romance between a Greek monk and a Russian nun, in the 12th century cluster of monasteries. Stathoulopoulos is a Greek-Colombian director who has earned much critical acclaim in the past decade.

Meteora had premiered as an official selection for the Directors' Fortnight at Cannes and won the very prestigious Directors' Award at the International Thessaloniki Film Festival. The pre-release success of the film has created much hype for its 2012 release.

The Berlinale will be held on February 9-19 and will also feature another Greek film, Mustafa's Sweet Dreams by Angelos Abazoglou, in competition at the Generation 14+ section for young filmmakers.

Two Greek films will premiere in the Netherlands at the Rotterdam International Film Festival.

Unfair World by Filippos Tsitsos and Alps by Yorgos Lanthimos will be screened in the Spectrum section, while Ektoras Lygizos' The Boy Eating the Bird's Food will be launched as a work in progress.

Duncharon by Athina Rachel Tsangari and Hungry Mouth by Argyris Papadimitropoulos are included in this year's selection for CineMart, a film market that was launched 28 years ago and has gradually evolved into a forum for upcoming cinematographers. The Rotterdam Film Festival will run from January 25 through February 5.

And if you love Greek cinema but cannot make it to Berlin or Rotterdam, check out the Panorama of Greek Cinema series at the Avalon Theater, which presents monthly Greek films!

Source: Greek News Agenda

New Events for a New Year at the Embassy!

Happy New Year! Best wishes for a 2012 filled with health, happiness, and of course, more Greek culture! The Embassy is proud to present the following exciting events to celebrate Greek culture in the new year:

On January 4th, the first Wednesday of the month, on our regular 8:00pm rendez-vous at the AVALON Theatre, we will showcase the multiple-award winning film “Matching Jack” by the famous Greek-Australian female directorNadia Tass. Shipped directly from Down Under, we bring to the cinephiles of Washington Tass’s fresh view of life from a different yet familiar perspective.

On January 19th, at 7:00pm we will start our 2012 “Health, Nutrition and Fitness” series with an overview of the most recent discoveries in Health and Medicine, titled: “The Impact of Modern Genetics In Our Lives" by distinguished scientist Dr. Constantine A. Stratakis, MD, DMSci, NICHD, NIH. The lecture will take place at the Embassy of Greece.

On January 27th, at 6:30pm the Library of Congress in partnership with the Embassy of Greece and the National Endowment for the Arts will pay tribute to Greece’s Nobel laureate Odysseas Elytis for the significant contribution and influence of his poetry to the Spanish-speaking world. This will be one of its kind and not-to-be-missed event.