Theo Angelopoulos was the greatest exponent of Greek cinema. He studied law in Athens and later moved to Paris to enter The Sorbonne in 1960 where he also attends Claude Lévi-Strauss courses, although he soon left those studies to enter the IDHEC (Institute of Advanced Film Studies). At the end of the first cinematography course, in 1963, he was "expelled for being a nonconformist", deciding to return to his country.
That year he made his first foray into film shooting what he intended to be his debut feature, although unfortunately the film remains unfinished. Is about "Black and White«, A detective film that he abandons due to lack of capital.
From his arrival back in Athens he would work as a film critic in the leftist newspaper "Dimokratiki Allaghi" until its closure with the arrival of the Colonels dictatorship in 1967.
During 1965 Angelopoulos left another unfinished film, «Forminx Story«, Film about a Greek rock band. The film was intended as a promotion for the tour that the group was going to do, but it was suspended, and again the director ran out of budget to shoot.
In 1968 the filmmaker was finally able to finish a work and also with great success. His first 23-minute short film "Broadcast" is presented at the Thessaloniki Festival and gets the critics award.
The director shoots his first feature film in 1970 "Reconstruction". His debut work receives the Critics Award and the Best Director Award at the Thessaloniki Festival, the Georges Sadoul Award for the best film of the year shown in France and the award for the best foreign film at the Hyères Film Festival.
Two years later, he shot "Days of 36", a film with which he once again won the awards for best director and critics at the Thessaloniki Festival, a competition that has always held the filmmaker in high regard since its inception. The tape is also featured in the Berlinale where he wins the FIPRESCI award.
In 1975 the Greek director shot one of his best films and undoubtedly the most awarded, "The Journey of the Comedians." Once again, at the Thessaloniki Festival, he won the awards for best director and critics award, but also those for best film and best screenplay. The film is presented at Cannes where it won the FIPRESCI Award and at the Berlinale where it won the Interfilm Forum Award. In Japan it receives the Grand Prize for the Arts and the award for the best film of the year, in Brussels the Golden Age Award, the British Film Institute awards it as the best film of the year and later it would receive the FIPRESCI Award as one of the major films in the history of cinema and the Italian Critics Award for best film in the world of the 70s.
In 1977 Theo Angelopoulos filmed "Los cazadores", a film that he presented in Cannes as a candidate for the Palme d'Or and that won the Hugo de Oro Award for best film at the 1978 Chicago Film Festival.
Learn more | Film Masters: Theo Angelopoulos (Early and 70s)
Source | wikipedia
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