PANTELIS VOULGARIS
GREAT EVENTS, SMALL PLAYERS

In the mid-1960s, when Greek cinema was dominated by the standardized products of an assembly line production of films intended for Greek audiences, two short films came along and caused a stir, introducing a renewal in both theme and expression.

These were The Thief and Jimmy the Tiger (1966), by a twenty-five-year-old newcomer, Pantelis Voulgaris. Having learned useful lessons from his experience as an assistant director on commercial productions, Voulgaris put forth, with these two films, a proposition for a cinema that sheds light on moments; on everyday situations and behaviors, with respect for narrative rules, while at the same time adopting a sideways, critical point of view, which broaden-ed the horizon of the film towards the examination of ideo-logical and political issues, thus rising above the level of mere ethnography. This proposition will find its first full expression in his first feature film, Anna's Engagement (1972), one of the first film to extricate Greek cinema from its international isolation.

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