A History of Greek Cinema

The history of Greek cinema is a rather obscure and unexamined affair. Greek cinema started slowly and then collapsed; for several years it struggled to reinvent itself, produced its first mature works, then collapsed completely and almost vanished. Because of such a complex historical trajectory no comprehensive survey of the development of Greek cinema has been written in English. This book is the first to explore its development and the contexts that defined it by focusing on its main films, personalities and theoretical discussions.
A History of Greek Cinema focuses on the early decades and the attempts to establish a ＂national＂ cinema useful to social cohesion and national identity. It also analyses the problems and the dilemmas that many Greek directors faced in order to establish a distinct Greek cinema language and presents the various stages of development throughout the background of the turbulent political history of the country. The book combines historical analysis and discussions about cinematic form in to construct a narrative history about Greek cinematic successes and failures.

Vrasidas Karalis is Associate Professor in Modern Greek Studies at the University of Sydney. He has published extensively on Greek culture, history and art. He is the editor of the Journal of Modern Greek Studies (Australia and New Zealand). In the area of film studies he has published on Theo Angelopoulos, Sergei Eisenstein and Alfred Hitchcock.