The Artistic Director of the Panorama, film critic Ninos Fenek-Mikelidis, welcomes and invites cinephiles and supporters of the significant festival on an autumn journey through the images of creators such as Chris Marker, Roger Corman, Woody Allen, Araseli Lemos, and many others in a week featuring tributes to “The Eccentric Mr. Piccoli,” “Autumn Sonatas,” the “prisoners” of time machines, and 21st-century Greek cinema.
“What can attract a festival (and non-festival) audience during September? Thought is, you might say, above all necessary and rightly so. But I would also say it requires courage and risk, something new but also classic, something expected but also unusual, something distinctive, even bizarre. What could be more provocative than an eccentric Michel Piccoli, swept into a wild, dangerous feast, captive to a provocative Bardot, a provincial aristocrat, confronting the May of ‘68, or perverse, left in the embrace of Luis Buñuel’s chambermaid Jeanne Moreau in a hypocritical society, to mention some of the most charming and often bizarre performances of this beloved, eccentric, incomparable actor.”
La Grande Bouffe (1973)
From the summer/autumn pleasures, can science fiction films be missing? Certainly not! In the homage titled “Prisoners in the Time Machine,” focused on creating a rift in time, the festival has selected rarely screened b-movies that already have their fan base and can be watched repeatedly with the same enjoyment. These include two films by Edgar Ulmer, a major b-movie director known for film noir, westerns, and fantasy films; a film by Roger Corman, another great fantasy filmmaker; three films by lesser-known directors Arch Oboler (one of the earliest ’50s films about survival in a post-apocalyptic earth), Anno Saul (about a nightmare journey through a door leading to the past), and John Krish (a small British surprise about an alien wife sent to kill her husband). The program culminates with two special genre films: the classic mid-length film “La Jetée” by Chris Marker, and the inspired film “12 Monkeys” by Terry Gilliam. Also included is a Greek film, “Lovers in the Time Machine,” by Dimitris Panagiotatos, which inspired the title of the tribute.
Lovers Beyond Time (1991)
From the pre-festival tributes, Greek cinema, for which there is always a special fondness, is not missing. This year, seven films provide an image of themes tackled by seven younger Greek directors: Giorgos Grigorakis, Jacqueline Lenzou, Elina Psykou, Dimitris Koutsia-bassakos, Philippos Tsitos, Alexis Alexiou, Araseli Lemos. These directors emerged during the 21st century, with films that have participated in various international festivals (Locarno, Karlovy Vary, Sundance, Rotterdam, Edinburgh), and themes that have turned to new paths such as migration, racism, identity search, challenges of adulthood, corruption and bureaucracy, the struggle for survival, family relationships, character studies, as well as the mystery of crime thrillers.
Halloween (1978)
With tributes throughout September, we couldn’t help but include films that take place during the fall. From the extensive list of such films, we selected seven of the most representative of their genre for Panorama fans: from Woody Allen’s melancholic “September,” Ingmar Bergman’s “Autumn Sonata,” and Eric Rohmer’s “Autumn Tale,” to John Carpenter’s classic horror film “Halloween.”
Meet Me Ιn St. Louis (1944)
Among them are three unexpected choices: the classic musical “Meet Me in St. Louis” by Vincente Minnelli, one of Hollywood’s best musicals, set against the backdrop of the great international exhibition in the fall of 1903 in St. Louis, with a young, lively Judy Garland, Douglas Sirk’s romantic melodrama “A Love All Our Own,” and the unforgettable final concert by The Band, “The Last Waltz” (A rendezvous with the stars of pop), which took place in the fall of 1976 and was filmed by Martin Scorsese, immortalizing the end of a band that collaborated with the biggest names of the era: Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Muddy Waters, Ringo Starr, and many others. A film with which we triumphantly close this year’s pre-festival events of the 38th Panorama.
You may look here for the full schedule of the screenings.
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