
Directing
Theo Angelopoulos
Born 1935-04-27 · Athens, Greece
Theodoros Angelopoulos (Greek: Θεόδωρος Αγγελόπουλος) (1935—2012) was a Greek filmmaker, screenwriter and film producer. An acclaimed and multi-awarded film director who dominated the Greek art film industry from 1975 on, Angelopoulos was one of the most influential and widely respected filmmakers in the world. He started making films in 1967. In the 1970s he made a series of political films about modern Greece. Angelopoulos' work, described by Martin Scorsese as that of "a masterful filmmaker", is characterized by slightest movement, slightest change in distance, long takes, and complex yet carefully composed scenes; his cinematic method, as a result, is often described as "sweeping" and "hypnotic." In 1998 his film Eternity and a Day went on to win the prestigious Palme d'Or at the 51st edition of the Cannes Film Festival, and his films have been shown at many of the world's most esteemed film festivals. In 2000 he was the President of the Jury at the 22nd Moscow International Film Festival. The life of Theo Angelopoulos, his work, and his passion were the subject of a documentary directed in 2008 by Elodie Lelu. Angelopoulos died late on Tuesday, 24 January 2012, at 76 years old after being involved in a crash with a motorcycle ridden by an off-duty police officer. He was taken to hospital, where he was treated in an intensive care unit but succumbed to his serious injuries several hours later. Description above from the Wikipedia article Theo Angelopoulos, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Acting credits
5.3At the 60th anniversary of Cannes Film Festival, 34 famous directors are followed by camera.
A Special Day
2012
5.8Eleven major film makers from Europe, America and Asia talk about Akira Kurosawa and discover surprising influences on their own work.
Kurosawa's Way
2011
5.8Three young people have decided to rob the safe of the estate agent Thomas Christidis, whose office is in the center of Athens. The first of them is Ntinos, who is Christidis’ clerk, the second one is Stavros, Ntinos’ younger brother who works as a book representative, while their friend Michalis is a pirate taxi-driver. The robbery is successful, and they feel excited.
Robbery in Athens
1969
5.0A history of the Cannes Film Festival's Director's Fortnight selection.
40 x 15: The Forty Years of the Directors' Fortnight
2008
NRA journey through history
Journey Through History
1977
NRAs Yorgos Papalios trains for the Athens Marathon, his remarkable life unfolds – from shipping dynasties and revolutionary Cuba to the shaping of Greek cinema and cultural policy – revealing a personal journey that echoes the modern history of Greece.
Running on Waves
2026
7.0An immigrant returns to his village after many years, only to find that no one is waiting for him. When his wife and her lover murder him, an investigator attempts to reconstruct the crime, while a film crew documents the event.
Reconstruction
1970
NRPortrait of Greek director Theo Angelopoulos.
The Silence of the Gods
2004
Theo Angelopoulos: A Lifework in Film
Theo Angelopoulos: A Lifework in Film
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NRA documentary that focuses on Abbas Kiarostami's cinematic philosophy talking to himself and other figures, and also seeks the opinion about his works both inside and outside his homeland.
Kiarostami in Close up
2000
6.0A comic tale. The issue of film education has been a Gordian link for many years in Greece. Starting from the time of Stavrakos in 1950, the documentary reaches up to the present day, exploring this issue through a dialogue between the people who dealt and are dealing. Among them Theodoros Angelopoulos, Pantelis Voulgaris, Dinos Katsouridis, Nikos Koundouros, Manos Zacharias, Werner Herzog, Emir Kustouritsa, Fatih Akin.
Champions: A Comic Tale
2011
NRDocumentary that recounts the ups and downs of the shooting of Eternity and a Day (1998), focusing on the exhaustive preparation of the shot-sequence that closes the film, and the peculiar way in which Theo Angelopoulos works with his technical team and actors.
The End of an Eternity
2000
6.0Athens 1967. The political assassinations and the background between the government and foreign powers, on the occasion of the "Polk Case", where an innocent leftist was convicted for the murder of an American journalist in Greece.
Kierion
1974
NRAn approach to the phenomenon of Thanasis Vengos, the man and the artist, through film excerpts, testimonies of his collaborators and relatives and analyses of his symbolic role in the post-war modern Greek reality. Thanasis Vengos, for more than fifty years, was one of the most important actors in Greece. His films and lines are written in history, raising more than three generations of Greeks.
An All-Weather Man
2004
5.6Greek Theo Angelopoulos traveling from Athens to Ostia, the Roman beach where Pasolini was killed. Far from there, in a Spanish train station, Víctor Erice wanders in an interview about the film resistance. And in Italy, Tonino Guerra, Ninetto Davoli and Nico Naldini lend his voice to the missing Passolini to close a historic triangle on film and solitude.
Nuevo / Otro Cine Español - Un Lugar En El Cine
2007
6.7A City Runs Through the Festival is an anatomy of the Festival through the eyes of its own audience.
A City Runs Through the Festival
2007
NRA doc made during the nightmarish filming of The Suspended Step of the Stork at Florina.
Filming Under Pressure
1991
4.0An actress who shone during the "golden age" of Greek cinema now lives far from the limelight, almost isolated, with only a few friends for company. Her decision to return to the stage, following a proposal from an old colleague, will bring her into contact with younger people, but also with ghosts from the past that haunt her, prompting her to reevaluate her attitude toward her desires and life.
Towards Freedom
1996
NRA film director, his relationships with women and the expression of his bitterly emotions about cinema and Greece
Deserted and alone to make my pain go away
2006
NRTheo Angelopoulos recalls the defining moment in 1964 that led to him to live his entire life in Greece, and explores the concept of borders in his work - as the limits of existence, of life and death, of language and communication. “Narrowing down the borders narrows the communication, stretches the differences, magnifies oppositions, magnifies reasons for war, magnifies the refugees, magnifies the internal exile... In reality a civil war leaves behind wounds which cannot easily be healed and they revive, like ghosts, or like recurrent nightmares, during the long nights which have dogged Greek society for years.”
Balkan Landscapes: The Gaze of Theo Angelopoulos
1993
7.0A documentary about cinema censorship during the dictatorship in Greece (1967- 1974), based on never-before-seen state archives. The film includes clips of films which were either censored or banned, newsreels of that era, interviews with famous directors and also secret documents from the reports of the Censorship Committee that are made public for the first time, portraying a revealing picture of the system’s control mechanisms and providing a fresco of that time.
Affection to the People
2013
A cinematic portrait of director Nikos Koundouros, this documentary explores his artistic journey through the voices of renowned Greek artists, tracing the experiences and influences that shaped his visionary work.
Odyssea Corporum - Ballad for Nikos Koundouros
2010
NRMichel Demopoulos directed only one film in his life: a documentary about the shooting of Theo Angelopoulos’ O Thiasos / The Travelling Players (1975).
The Other Stage
1975
NRIn the mid-80s, Aegokeros publishing house intended to publish a magazine about film and the theater. Theo Angelopoulos and Nikos Panayotopoulos had been chosen by the editorial board for the first issue. A summer evening at Angelopoulos house in the Mati area, Antonis Kokkinos and Yannis Soldatos recorded a three-hour interview between Theo and Nikos, within the frameworks set for them, in order to be included in the magazine. The interview brought to the fore their common course, even though completely opposite from one point onward. Thirty-five years later, the unpublished conversation has been found; both the tapes and the transcripts! This conversation stands as a valuable manifestation of the creators’ views regarding their own, until then, existing and future work, as well as a thorough insight into the New Greek Cinema, and into World Cinema in general.
To Each Their Voice: Theo Angelopoulos & Nikos Panayotopoulos
2023
Behind the camera
6.4Commissioned to mark the 60th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival, "To Each His Own Cinema" brought together 33 of the world's pre-eminent filmmakers to produce short pieces exploring the multifarious facets of cinema and their perspective on the state of their chosen artform in the early 21st century.
To Each His Own Cinema
2007
6.340 international directors were asked to make a short film using the original Cinematographe invented by the Lumière Brothers, working under conditions similar to those of 1895. There were three rules: (1) The film could be no longer than 52 seconds, (2) no synchronized sound was permitted, and (3) no more than three takes.
Lumière & Company
1995
7.5An exiled filmmaker finally returns to his home country where former mysteries and afflictions of his early life come back to haunt him once more.
Ulysses' Gaze
1995
7.5An exiled filmmaker finally returns to his home country where former mysteries and afflictions of his early life come back to haunt him once more.
Ulysses' Gaze
1995
7.5An exiled filmmaker finally returns to his home country where former mysteries and afflictions of his early life come back to haunt him once more.
Ulysses' Gaze
1995
7.8Famous writer Alexander contracts a terminal illness. He receives a letter from his wife describing a summer day 30 years ago, and leaves his seaside home to remember his past. This journey will allow him to wander between the past and the present, and encounter unexpected people, allowing him to collect unforgettable memories in the final moments of his life.
Eternity and a Day
1998
7.8Famous writer Alexander contracts a terminal illness. He receives a letter from his wife describing a summer day 30 years ago, and leaves his seaside home to remember his past. This journey will allow him to wander between the past and the present, and encounter unexpected people, allowing him to collect unforgettable memories in the final moments of his life.
Eternity and a Day
1998
7.8Famous writer Alexander contracts a terminal illness. He receives a letter from his wife describing a summer day 30 years ago, and leaves his seaside home to remember his past. This journey will allow him to wander between the past and the present, and encounter unexpected people, allowing him to collect unforgettable memories in the final moments of his life.
Eternity and a Day
1998
7.6Two Greek children embark on a journey to search for their father, who supposedly lives in Germany.
Landscape in the Mist
1988
7.6Two Greek children embark on a journey to search for their father, who supposedly lives in Germany.
Landscape in the Mist
1988
7.6Two Greek children embark on a journey to search for their father, who supposedly lives in Germany.
Landscape in the Mist
1988
7.0Following the wedding of his daughter, stone-faced beekeeper Spyros makes an annual journey from the north of Greece to the south, traveling along with his hives. En route, he meets an erratic, young female drifter, with whom he strikes up an unusual, self-destructive relationship.
The Beekeeper
1986
7.0Following the wedding of his daughter, stone-faced beekeeper Spyros makes an annual journey from the north of Greece to the south, traveling along with his hives. En route, he meets an erratic, young female drifter, with whom he strikes up an unusual, self-destructive relationship.
The Beekeeper
1986
7.0Following the wedding of his daughter, stone-faced beekeeper Spyros makes an annual journey from the north of Greece to the south, traveling along with his hives. En route, he meets an erratic, young female drifter, with whom he strikes up an unusual, self-destructive relationship.
The Beekeeper
1986
6.4To trace the fading past of his parents, a grizzled Greek-American filmmaker decides to shoot a movie. By recounting the painful efforts of his mother to reunite with his musician father, his film spans more than half of the 20th century.
The Dust of Time
2008
6.4To trace the fading past of his parents, a grizzled Greek-American filmmaker decides to shoot a movie. By recounting the painful efforts of his mother to reunite with his musician father, his film spans more than half of the 20th century.
The Dust of Time
2008
7.1An old communist returning to Greece after 32 years in the Soviet Union is disillusioned with the state of things.
Voyage to Cythera
1984
7.1An old communist returning to Greece after 32 years in the Soviet Union is disillusioned with the state of things.
Voyage to Cythera
1984
7.1An old communist returning to Greece after 32 years in the Soviet Union is disillusioned with the state of things.
Voyage to Cythera
1984
7.2A traveling theatre troupe tours the Greek countryside from 1939 to the early 1950s, staging “Golfo the Shepherdess”. 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.
The Travelling Players
1975
7.2A traveling theatre troupe tours the Greek countryside from 1939 to the early 1950s, staging “Golfo the Shepherdess”. 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.
The Travelling Players
1975
6.9A reporter notices an old man in a border town who may be an important Greek politician who disappeared mysteriously years ago.
The Suspended Step of the Stork
1991
6.9A reporter notices an old man in a border town who may be an important Greek politician who disappeared mysteriously years ago.
The Suspended Step of the Stork
1991
6.9A reporter notices an old man in a border town who may be an important Greek politician who disappeared mysteriously years ago.
The Suspended Step of the Stork
1991