The exhibition “Melina Mercouri: Remember me and Love me”, opening on 18 January, crowns the activities by the Ministry of Culture and Sports in cooperation with the Melina Mercouri Foundation marking the centennial anniversary of her birth, the “Melina Mercouri Year”, taking place this year instead of 2020, due to the pandemic.

Lina Mendoni, Minister of Culture and Sports, said: “Melina remains a myth, combining her glamorous art with the struggle against the dictatorship and for the return of the Parthenon Marbles to Greece. We always remember her and always love her.”

Manouella Pavlidou, general secretary of the Melina Mercouri Foundation, said: “Thanks to the support of the Ministry of Culture and Sports, we present the world of Melina, a world where politics and culture were never abstract concepts, but realities of vision, creativity, faith and solidarity.”

The exhibition features photographs and audiovisual material, costumes, posters, personal items, her dressing room and her objects from the last trip to New York. Manouella Pavlidou was in charge of general supervision, while Dr Nikos Kaltsas, head of the Museum of Cycladic Art, carried out the museological and museographical study.

The exhibition takes place at the New Ovens in the Technopolis of the Municipality of Athens from 18 January to 11 March 2022, with free entrance.

Overview of the Melina Mercouri Year by the Ministry of Culture and Sports

2020

16 January

Event about the “Snatching of the Parthenon Marbles” at the Library of the Law School, University of Athens

29 January

Day-long event about the “Return of the Parthenon Marbles” and video titled “Melina Mercouri – The Struggle for the Return of the Parthenon Marbles”

26 February

Exhibition with Melina’s costumes, titled “Our own Melina”, at the Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation

7 August

Honorary event during the Olympos Festival

10 October

Honorary event in Lyon, with Nana Mouschouri and Jacques Lang, former Minister of Culture in France. The event was transferred from the Cannes Festival, which was cancelled.

October The 8th International Film Festival in Chania is dedicated to Melina

18 October

Cosmote History Channel screens the documentary “I was born Greek”

19 October

Austrian State Television (ORF) hosts the event “I am Greek” organized by the Greek embassy in Austria

20 October

In the presence of Her Excellency the President of the Hellenic Republic Katerina Sakellaropoulou, the Melina Mercouri Theatre Award is given and the film “Melina  Freeze Frame – In search of modern Greekness”, a co-production by the Ministry of Culture and Sports and the Greek National Theatre, is screened.

2021

November

An exhibition about the struggle for the return of the Parthenon Marbles and the smuggling of antiquities, in UNESCO Paris, with funding from the Ministry of Culture and Sports

Events cancelled due to the pandemic

Unfortunately, due to health concerns, a series of scheduled events in the Melina Mercouri Year were cancelled. Among them, the photo exhibition about the movie “Topkapi” in Kavala, the concert by Alkistis Protopsalti with songs identified with Melina, an event in the Municipal Theatre of Piraeus and the Festival of the Municipality of Vyronas.