History

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Golden Palm winner in Cannes in 1975 for an epic and meticulous account of the Algerian war starring our own Yorgo Voyagis, presented here restored with the conrtibution of Martin Scorsese's Film Foundation.

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A meticulous chronicle of the development of the Algerian nationalist movement from 1939 until the start of the revolution on 1 November 1954. Ahmed gradually awakens to political consciousness against colonization, under the gaze of his son, symbol of the new Algeria.

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Palme d'Or | Cannes Film Festival | 1975

Chronicle of the Years of Fire

One of the darkest chapters in modern European history takes the form of a suffocating political thriller full of dilemmas, suspense and – literal – dead ends. Jasmila Zbanic weaves personal tragedies into the canvas of history in an Oscar-nominated masterpiece.

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Based on true events, the film takes place in the summer of 1995 in Bosnia, during the siege of Srebrenica by the Serbian army. Aida works as an interpreter for the United Nations peacekeeping forces in the area. As the siege of the city tightens, Aida must make life and death decisions for herself and her family.

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Nomination for Best International Feature | Oscars | 2021
Audience Award | Rotterdam Film Festival | 2021

Quo Vadis, Aida?

A turning point in Oscar history, this period drama by Steve McQueen (Hunger, Small Axe) depicts slavery with stunningly powerful imagery, delivers scenes that stay with you long after, and went on to win Oscars for Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actress for the phenomenal Lupita Nyong’o.

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In the years before the Civil War, a free Black man from upstate New York is abducted and sold into slavery in the South. Enduring the cruelty of a vicious master, he finds unexpected kindness in another, all while fighting relentlessly to survive and hold on to his dignity. In the twelfth year of his harrowing ordeal, a chance encounter with a Canadian abolitionist changes his life forever.

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Best Film | Oscars | 2014
Best Adapted Screenplay | Oscars | 2014
Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role (Lupita Nyong'o) | Oscars | 2014
Best Film | BAFTA | 2014
Best Actor (Chiwetel Ejiofor) | BAFTA | 2014
Best Motion Picture - Drama | Golden Globes | 2013
People’s Choice Award | Toronto International Film Festival | 2013

12 Years a Slave

After the success of "Little England", Pantelis Voulgaris continues to record modern Greek society and history, with one of its most famous pages. A tragic, deeply political historical drama, with a script by Ioanna Karystiani and starring Andreas Konstantinou.

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Greece, Haidari concentration camp, before May Day '44. 34-year-old Napoleon Soukatzidis acts as an interpreter for the German camp commander, Karl Fischer. Napoleon is one of the 200 people selected to be executed on May 1 at Caesarian in retaliation for the deaths of four Germans from the Greek resistance. On the day of the execution he will be faced with a dilemma of life when Fisher gives him the opportunity to opt out and put someone else in his place.

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Best Actor (Andreas Konstantinou) | Hellenic Film Academy Award | 2018
Best Makeup | Hellenic Film Academy Award | 2018
Best Sound | Hellenic Film Academy Award | 2018
Best Costume Design | Hellenic Film Academy Award | 2018

The Last Note

The history of Greece as experienced through the lives of a single family, set against a backdrop of wars, losses, and historical upheavals. The first part of Angelopoulos’ unfinished trilogy is an ambitious historical narrative of the Greek twentieth century.

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The story follows a family of refugees from the early twentieth century through to the Civil War. Through movements, separations, and reunions, personal lives intersect with Greece’s major historical transformations. Space and time are in constant flux, while the characters remain trapped in an unending search for a homeland.

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FIPRESCI Prize | European Film Awards | 2004
Official Selection | Berlin International Film Festival | 2004

The Weeping Meadow

A searing critique of our collective and individual need to create heroes, only to dismantle them, rich in symbolism drawn from both ancient and modern Greek history, and a film that could just as easily have been made in 1960 as be arriving from 2060.

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At the dawn of the twentieth century, a popular bandit known as “Megalexandros” escapes from prison, kidnaps British diplomats, and holds them hostage in his village, demanding amnesty and the return of land to the villagers.

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Special Golden Lion | Venice Film Festival | 1980
FIPRESCI Prize | Venice Film Festival | 1980
Cinema Nuovo Prize | Venice Film Festival | 1980
Best Film | Thessaloniki Film Festival | 1980
Best Cinematography | Thessaloniki Film Festival | 1980
Best Set Decoration | Thessaloniki Film Festival | 1980
Best Sound | Thessaloniki Film Festival | 1980
Best Film – Film Critics Association Award | Thessaloniki Film Festival | 1980

Alexander the Great

The second part of the Trilogy of History is not only the most emblematic film in Angelopoulos’ filmography, but also one of the greatest achievements in the history of world cinema. A radical synthesis of history and myth and, above all, a profoundly stirring cinematic experience.

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A traveling theatre troupe tours the Greek countryside from 1939 to the early 1950s, staging Golfo. As the years pass, its members endure persecution, betrayal, executions, and exile. Their personal stories become entangled with the country’s major historical events, in a seemingly endless cycle of violence and loss.

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FIPRESCI Prize - Directors' Fortnight | Cannes Film Festival | 1975
Interfilm Award - Forum of New Cinema | Berlin International Film Festival | 1975
Special Prize | Taormina Film Festival | 1975
Sutherland Award | British Film Institute | 1975
L'Age d'Or Award - Best Film | Royal Film Archive of Belgium | 1975
Best Film | Figueira da Foz Film Festival | 1976
Best Film of the Decade | Italian Film Critics Association | 1971-1980
Best Foreign Film | Kinema Junpo | 1979
40th Greatest Film of All Time | International Federation of Film Critics | 1979
7 Awards | Thessaloniki Film Festival | 1975

The Travelling Players

In the third part of his Trilogy of History, Theo Angelopoulos constructs one of the most relentless allegories in European cinema. A political requiem for the moral decay of the post–Civil War bourgeoisie, and for all that it sought to bury.

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During a hunting weekend on New Year’s Day, a group of wealthy bourgeois discover the body of a Civil War partisan, buried for decades in the snow. The presence of the dead man shatters their superficial calm, forcing them to confront their past, their responsibilities, and their complicity.

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Golden Hugo Best Film | Chicago International Film Festival | 1977
Official Selection | Cannes Film Festival | 1977
Best Film of the Year | Turkish Film Critics Association | 1977

The Hunters

Poised between narrative cinema and the poetic language that would later define his work, Angelopoulos makes an appointment with History in a politically pivotal and cinematographically essential transitional work.

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On the eve of the 1936 elections, a desperate prisoner, accused of murdering a trade unionist, takes a member of parliament hostage in his cell, in an attempt to pressure the authorities into securing his release.

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Best Director | Thessaloniki Film Festival | 1972
Best Cinematography | Thessaloniki Film Festival | 1972
FIPRESCI Prize - Forum of New Cinema | Berlin International Film Festival | 1973

Days of '36

From “The People Vs. Fritz Bauer” and the guilt over the crimes of the Third Reich, director Lars Kraume shifts his focus to East Germany and a true story of rights infringement from an utterly different ideological starting point, thus creating a balanced dyad of historical memory.

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A group of twelfth-grade pupils decide to show their solidarity with the victims of the 1956 Hungarian uprising by staging two minutes of silence during lessons. Based on real events and the memoirs of Dietrich Garstka.

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Audience Award | Berkshire International Film Festival | 2019

The Silent Revolution

One of the most influential auteurs of modern Asian cinema, Hou Hsiao-Hsien, looks at history through the eyes of a silent assassin, intermixing wuxia tradition with historical epic. A gorgeous film that won the directing award at Cannes.

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In 9th century China, a nun kidnaps a 10-year-old girl in order to train her in martial arts and turn her into a cold-blooded assassin. Her ultimate goal is to eradicate corruption. When the girl fails in one of her missions, she will be sent back home in order to kill the man she was destined to marry. After 13 years in exile, she must face her family, her memories and her repressed feelings. She will have to choose between the man she loves and the holy purpose she now serves.

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Official Selection | Cannes Film Festival | 2015
Best Director | Cannes Film Festival | 2015
Cannes Soundtrack Award | Cannes Film Festival | 2015
FIPRESCI Prize Best Foreign Language Film | 2016
Palm Springs International Film Festival | 2016

The Assassin

The French Revolution comes to life in an epic production, impressive both in its scale and its intention, that captures the explosive climate of the era. With an undoubtedly exquisite cast that includes Adèle Haenel, Gaspard Ulliel, Denis Lavant and Louis Garrel.

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Paris, 1789. “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité” and the takeover of the Bastille change Europe forever. However, while the French Revolution writes history, a young girl who works as laundress and a wondering man with no identity or family, find love in the streets of a city in turmoil.

One Nation, One King

Best Film Award in the Orizzonti section of the Venice Film Festival for a tragicomedy set on a single day before the 1989 revolution in Romania. Acute humour and poignant political commentary come together in a pivotal film that reminds us of the importance of historical memory.

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On 20 December 1989, Romania is on the verge of revolution. Six seemingly unconnected lives intersect in unexpected ways. As tensions reach a breaking point, an explosive moment unites them, culminating in the dramatic fall of Ceausescu and the communist regime.

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Best Film Award - Orizzonti | Venice Film Festival | 2024
FIPRESCI Prize | Venice Film Festival | 2024

The New Year that Never Came

This is how empires crumble. The notorious historical epic by Tinto Brass and Malcolm McDowell became the subject of lawsuits and controversies for decades, shocking and dividing with its extreme content, before being rescued as a cult classic with a definitive cut at Cannes in '23.

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The depravity behind Imperial Rome through the epic tale of its most infamous emperor. All the details of the harsh, bizarre reign of Caligula are revealed here: his unspeakable sexual passion for his sister, his marriage to the most famous prostitute in Rome, and his diabolically inventive means of removing those who oppose him.