The European Animation Center was the executive producer of a DVD entitled “Greek Animation, 1945-2007, Collection No. 1” for the Hellenic Audiovisual Institute (IOM).
5,000 copies of the DVD were made and will be distributed both domestically and internationally, free of charge, showcasing and acquainting viewers everywhere with Greek animation.
Those scheduled to receive the DVD include schools, municipal cultural centers, cultural clubs, youth associations, festivals and artistic organizations and agencies of all kinds.
Interested parties as well as art-loving citizens may acquire the DVD by contacting us either by phone (210-7293694) during office hours (10:00-12:00) or by e-mail at eac@otenet.gr
Mr Rudolf MORONIS, President - Director of I.O.M., notes:
"From George Melies and Emile Cohl to Windsor Mc Cay, from Otto Messmer and Pat Sullivan’s studios (strictly dedicated to animation genre), films and animation techniques - that in Greek are wrongly defined by the restrictive term of “dessins animé” - have such a long history as the cinema. In fact, animation species are maybe more in number than film genres, either short or feature films, narrative or fiction.
The history of animation genre starts in France by Emile Reynaud, indisputable “father” of animation already from 1880’s.
In Greece, animation has a long history too, which however has not been completely recorded, and is indeed, under serious threat of not being fully recorded, due to new techniques in the new communication era.
The Hellenic Audiovisual Institute decided to try and “rescue” some of the most representative pieces of this genre, strongly advocating that it offers dual service, to the genre itself and to its future “workers” or historians. For this reason, the Institute has assigned the European Animation Center, which has worked consistently and with extra care from 2004 on the animation genre, with the collection of these pieces.
We believe that we not yet closed our accounts with this film genre. As we hope that its history goes on. It may have passed on to the digital era (with a pioneer spirit) but it will still constitute a form of art, that requires fantasy, talent and soul testimony."
The animation films of DVD has chosen by Mrs Chrysante SOTIROPOULOU, Lecturer, University of Patras, and director of the Educational Activities Department of the European Animation Center.
The films:
1. DUCE NARRATES, 3' 35''
Direction / scriptwriter: Stamatis Polenakis
Technigue: Papier de coupe
Production year: 1945
A anti-fascist film of Stamatis Polenakis in collaboration with Prodromos Merevidis and Panagiotis Papadoukas. Duce narrates his doings but reality disconfirmes him. It is the first greek cartoon in the technique of papier de coupe. Polenakis designed the sketches in the island of Sifnos in 1942, during Italian occoupation wich he animated in 1945.
2. SSSST, 5' 55''
Direction / Script: Thodoros Marangos
Animation: Thodoros Marangos
Technique: 2d animation
Production: Thodoros Marangos
Production year: 1971
Awards
- Best Film, Thessaloniki Film Festival 1971
- Special Mention of Greek Film Critics
The film is maded by drawings and photographs. Through a permanent alternation of pictures, extracts from newspapers and other optical material it presents the life of that season.
3. CICADA AND ANT, 3'
Direction / scriptwriter: Alecos Papadatos
Animation: Alecos Papadatos
Technigue: 2d animation
Music: Michalis Siganidis
Production year: 1987
Ε-mail: alecos@otenet.gr
- Best short animation (special techniques), Drama Short Film Festival 1988
The known fable of Aesop transmuted in modern times…
4. DON'T FEED THE BEAR, 3'
Direction / scenario:Nassos Vakalis
Animation: Nassos Vakalis
Technique: 2d animation
Production year: 1989
Ε-mail: nassosvakalis@yahoo.com
Website: www.nassosvakalis.com
A train traveling bear is trying to hide a jar of honey from customs.
His son has a different idea though.
5. SCENT OF CITY, (Odeur de ville) 8' 30''
Direction, scriptwriter: Georges Sifianos
Animation: Georges Sifianos
Technique: 2d animation
Music: Petros Korelis
Producer: OLIVE Productions – Greek Film Centre
Production year: 1994
E-mail: sifianos@ensad.fr
In a big city a woman lives alone in a room in the company of her cat Basil. This restricted universe is hostile to both her the cat, with which she identifies herself, and, at the same time, oppresses. Imagination will be her only means of escape, witch she perhaps find in a desperate gesture of revolt.
6. 776 B.C, 6' (15 episodes of 40'')
Direction / scriptwriter: Babis Venetopoulos, Yannis Vogiatzopoulos
Animation: Babis Venetopoulos, Yannis Vogiatzopoulos
Technique: 3d animation
Production: ERT (Hellenic Radio Television)
Production year: 2002
E-mail: info@mda.gr
Website: www.mda.gr
The first Olympic Games....
7. ANCIENT MAN No 2, 10'
Direction / scriptwriter: Dimitris Vorris 
Animation supervisor: Nasos Myrmiridis
3d Backgrounds: Loizos Pagonis
Technique: 2d animation
Music: Panos Tsaparas
Narrator: Harry Clynn
Production year: 2002
E-mail: dvorris@otenet.gr
Website: www.vorris.gr/arxaioulis2_eng.html
Archaioulis is an openhearted and laughing philosopher that lives in Athens of 5th century B.C. “The Golden Century”. He likes the tours in the city, the discussions and the good wine… His adventures begin when he comes by an “error” in Athens of 21st century…
8. THE LAW OF GRAVITY, 8' 45''
Direction / scriptwriter: Spyros Rasidakis
Animation: Spyros Rasidakis
Technique: 3d animation
Production year: 2002
E-mail: spiros.rasidakis@gamil.com
The possibilities of technology today are almost without limits.
9. FRICS, 3' 06''
Direction / scriptwriter: Helen Tsampra
Animation: Helen Tsampra
Technique: 2d animation
Production year: 2003
E-mail: eleni_t@otenet.gr
The film throws a critical and humorous glance in the consumerism and the adoration of money.
10. DEVILUTION, 3' 50''
Direction . scriptwriter: Petros Papadopoulos
Technigue: 2d and 3d animation
Music by: Ornithology/ Lee Fraser, Gareth Jones and Thigahmahjigee
Vocals: Thigahmahjigee & Alison Galea
Production: Petros Papadopoulos, Sarah Cox and London Met. Uni.
Production year: 2004
E-mail: petrospapad@yahoo.co.uk
Website: www.zina.gr/petros.swf
A music video inspired by the biblical story “The tower of Babel”.
11. SHORT PROGRAMME, 5' 40''
Direction: Dimitris Papadopoulos
Animation: Dimitris Papadopoulos
Technique: Stop Motion
Choreography: Marilia Chrysospathi
Production: Oneframeanimations
Co-production: VideoDance - Thessaloniki International Film Festival
Production year: 2003
E-mail: oneframe@otenet.gr
When Mitch turns his washing machine on, a week's laundry becomes the perfect pretext for a unique variety act. Alas! This is an earth to heaven round trip. The laundry turns out pink-grey again.
12. THEROS, 2' 36''
Direction / scriptwriter: Giorgos Herouveim
Animation: Giorgos Cherouveim
Sound: Ioannis Cherouvim
Technique: 3d animation
Production year: 2005
E-mail: cg[at]ch3[dot]gr
Website: www.ch3.gr
Harvest-time - Nature - Person - Exploitation - Development – Society...
13. THE CIRCLE OF DEVELOPMENT, 8' 04''
Direction / scriptwriter: Konstantinos Katrakis, Panos Katsachnias
Animation: Konstantinos Katrakis, Panos Katsachnias
Technique: 3d animation
Music: Giannis Kyrris
Production: Pictus
Production year: 2005
E-mail: pictus@otenet.gr
The circle of development illustrate the development of life...
14. ZEAL TO MICROPOLIS, 2' 51''
Direction /scriptwriter: Christoforos Papachristoforou
Animation: Christoforos Papachristoforou
Technique: 2d animation
Production year: 2005
E-mail: christoforospap@mail.gr
We fight without no certainty. There is nothing certain in the Universe. We try to build in a Micro-polis. That is what we fight for. Nothing important.
15. ELYTRON, 2'
Animator / scriptwriter: Maria Kontogiorgou
Technigue: 2d animation
Composer: Hugo Ribeiro
Production year: 2006
Ε-mail: maria@animflash.net
Website: www.animflash.net
Elytron is a protection cover for the insects wings. A poet sits on his intimate room and writes. Imagination transports him far away from his physical space, into an oneiric place which is his own truth!
16. LOVE IN DISGUISE, 4' 45''
Direction / scriptwriter: Aggeliki Salamalaki
Animation: Aggeliki Salamalaki
Technigue: Traditional animation
Music: Christos Tsantoulis
Production year: 2006
Ε-mail: angelikisalamaliki@yahoo.co.uk
The love usually comes from nowhere… and usually it does not lead! No however for the protagonists of this film! For these two, the love comes in disguise!
17. THE MIRROR STAGE, 9'
Direction / scriptwriter: Spyros Siakas
Animation: Spyros Siakas
Technique: Stop motion
Cinematography: Melina Mascha, Dimitris Horianopoulos
Editing: Spyros Siakas
Sound: Nikos Glykiotis
Sets: Stelios Polychronakis
Music: Nikos Kypourgos
Production: ERT S.A., Greek Film Centre, SSSP-En Kinisi
Production year: 2005
E-mail: sthsiakas@hotmail.com
- Distinction by the GFC jury in the 28th Drama Short Film Festival
- Diploma by the ASIFA jury in the Balkanima, 2nd International Animated Film Festival, Belgrade
- Award for the best Greek animated film in the 3rd Naousa International Short Film & Video Festival
The last night of a wooden puppet before it becomes a dancing Marionette. A poster of a dancing theatre works like a screen-mirror through which the puppet tries to identify her "ego" like an infant in front of a mirror, according to the psychoanalysis theory of Jackues Lakan.
18.BLOODY MARY, 1' 6''
Direction / animation: Zina Papadopoulou
Technique: 2d animation
Music: Gregory Grigoropoulos
Production year: 2007
E-mail: zinap@yahoo.com
Website: www.zina.gr
A door opens. Mary faces the strange room with mixed feelings of excitement and greed. Could things seem different, had she been a cow?
Mrs Chrysanthe SOTIROPOULOU, notes about this collection:
"Athens Animfest 2007, the European animation festival being organized in Athens by the European Animation Centre, has rekindled interest in European and international animation as well as concern for the situation that prevails in Greece as regards this field. Through meetings and workshops the above event has also provided the occasion for an exchange of dialogue on contemporary aesthetic trends and the role of the new technologies in the making of animated films. At the same time the possibilities have presented themselves to use animation in the didactic process of primary and secondary education, chiefly in the area of artistic training, the cultivation of critical thought and the protection of young people by providing them with the aesthetic wherewithal to face the increasingly more massive deluge of images from a variety of sources and of an often doubtful quality.
As far as the professional training of the young creators is concerned the Hellenic Audiovisual Institute (I.O.M.) contributed significantly to the conference on scripts for short animated films, co-organized by the Scriptwriters Union of Greece, and also published the minutes of this meeting, thus enriching the relatively limited bibliography on related subjects. Furthermore the production and circulation by the Hellenic Audiovisual Institute of this DVD containing Greek animated films will, we believe, make a catalytic contribution in acquainting young audiences with these creations, which usually remain unknown or almost unknown to the broader public.
In countries where cinema constitutes a cultural industry, billions are spent on research and development of new technologies and the results achieved are incorporated in the production and circulation process of audiovisual works. For the USA and Japan, but also for Russia, Britain and France, animated films constitute a significant source of income and the production studios in these countries are the alluring destination of the best professionals from all over the world as these countries have the possibility of systematically producing feature-length animation films on a yearly basis. And it is these films that fill movie theaters all over the world as well as those in Greece, reaping huge financial benefits.
Yet when they want to express their personal concerns many of the new as well as the veteran animators working for large companies resort to making short films which, almost always, even though they have limited budgets, afford them the possibility of artistic expression. So we have a significant production of animated shorts from countries like Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Poland, Greece, Belgium. The imagination, the passion and the talent of the creators overcome –most of the time– the obstacles of an inexpensive –as a rule- production, achieving aesthetically superior artistic results.
In this genre of artistic films the creators, freed from dependence on the norms of a costly production –whose goals, of course, are also profit-oriented– dare to turn with a more subjective perception to subjects such as human relationships, the world and the fate of children, the environment, education, racism, xenophobia. These thematic sequences, filtered through the personal sensibility of each creator are recorded by the pencil or the digital eye of the camera or computer software and attempt to reach arthouse theater screens or, through the Internet, computer monitors, mobile phones, video/mp3 and other similar digital devices reproducing sound and images that determine the way an image is employed in the 21st century.
A simple script, notional accuracy and poetic contemplativeness prevail in the narrative process of Greek animated shorts, as the time, the duration and the cost of telling the selected story is of decisive importance.
Our country, a minor power on the global audiovisual scene, without significant investments and big studios, has produced animators with a great deal of talent and expertise. A few of them reap the rewards of an international career, while most are professionally employed domestically, chiefly in the advertising and television sector, while they all continue to make short animation films for their personal pleasure and artistic self expression.
The list of those Greek filmmakers involved in animation either intermittently or continually is relatively long. In the present DVD seventeen of them, listed in chronological order –on the basis of the production year of their films– reveal their sensibilities and talent thus creating a panorama of Greek animation that demonstrates clearly the evolutionary course towards maturity of their aesthetic quests and concerns but also the improvements in the technical means they used to express them. In 60 and more years from Stamatis Polenakis’ papier de coupe technique and Giorgos Sifianos’ drawing on rice paper to the exploitation of mixed techniques by many younger artists and the services of the 3D animation used by today’s generation, much has changed for the better. But one thing has remained unchanged: people’s need to express their inner world and the world of the era in which they lived or live.
The present publication certainly does not exhaust or evaluate the entire Greek production in the animation sector. It is –as it also states in the sub-heading of the present DVD– a first collection, in the hope that a second and third will follow… Having had the responsibility but also the joy of selecting the specific films we hope that you will share with us the enjoyment we felt when we watched them over and over again in order to incorporate them in the DVD you are holding.
In conclusion, we would like to thank the Board of Directors of the Hellenic Audiovisual Institute and its president Mr. Rodolfo Moronis, who shared the idea and generously decided to adopt it. We are convinced that those who receive the present DVD but also the numerous viewers who will have the opportunity to share it, will feel as we do when they see the animated films on their screen inviting them… to travel with them!"
