Theran Matins

Θηραϊκός Όρθρος

A «visual social investigation" of the island of Santorini at a time when the primitive agrarian economy is gradually being replaced by the then rising tourist industry. The island's wretched and under-nurished inhabitants are juxtaposed to the awe-inspiring beauty of the island, against a musical background of the matins psalms. In the words of the director: "The film had to unite tragic, satirical, epic, and lyrical elements, which had to be free of any naturalistic sound, and instead to acquire a musical expression emanating from tradition, but which would, at the same time, express the modern-day, anti-metaphysical cry of the sufferer."

Screening Schedule

No physical screenings scheduled.


Direction: Costas Sfikas, Stavros Tornes
Script: Costas Sfikas
Cinematography: Yorgos Panoussopoulos
Editing: Panos Papakyriakopoulos
Sound: Costas Sfikas
Actors: Chanting by Pantelis Voulgaris' father
Production: Stavros Tornes, Yorgos Samiotis, Greek Film Centre
Format: 35mm
Color: B&W
Production Country: Greece
Production Year: 1968
Duration: 25'

Stavros Tornes

Filmography

1963 Mycenes (co-direction, short)
1964 Cyclades (co-direction, short)
1967 Thirian Matins (co-direction, short)
1973 Students (short)
1976 Farewell Anatolia (short fiction)
1977 Coatti (fiction)
1979 Eksopragmatico (short)
1982 Nikos Kavvadias
1982 Balamos (fiction)
1983 Hippodamias Square (short)
1984 Karkalou (fiction)
1986 Danilo Treles: The Famed Andalusian Musician (fiction)
1987 A Heron for Germany (fiction)

Costas Sfikas

Kostas Sfikas was born in Athens in 1927. He worked as an employee in the post office in his juvenile years. In 1961, he directs a short film and begins his adventure as a self-taught cinematographer. Seven years later, along with Stavros Tornes, he directs the short documentary, Theran Matins, bought later by MOMA in New York. Devoted to experimental cinema, Kostas Sfikas has filmed nine documentaries and fiction films and continues to create, being a constant alternative voice in Greek cinema. A complete retrospective of his work will be accompanied by a publication of a monograph.

Filmography

Born in Athens in 1927.He was a postal employee from his adolescence. .Costas Sfikas embarked on the adventure of the self-taught filmmaker in
1961 with his short film Inauguration It was followed by the documentary Wait in
1962 and Dawn in Thera in
1968 which he made in collaboration with the late Stavros Tornes and where the influence of the neorealistic school is prevalent. His aversion for representational film and the vision of a dialectical materialistic cinema, capable of giving form to the conquests of Marxist philosophical thought, led him to make the films Model 1974, (Award for best artistic film at the Thessaloniki Film Festival in
1974). A copy of the film can by found at the Georges Pompidou Museum of Modern Art in Paris). This was followed by Cathedrals
1975, Allegory
1986, Paul Klee's prophetic bird of sorrows
1995, Prometheus enantiodromon (Prometheus Retrogressing)
1998 and "THE WOMAN OF...AND THE COLLECTOR, ALLEGORY III","VARIATIONS ON THE THEME OF CONTE DIONISIU SOLOMOU". Since
1976 the television program "Backstage" with its open investigative character offers the possibility of making a significiant number of essays: -The Violinist Tatsis Apostolides -Lament for Yanni Christou
1978 (20') -The Circus of Sofia
1979 (20') -The Gospel according to Saint Mark
1979 (20') -Voices and haunts of the rebetico music
1980 (20') -Expressionism in the cinema
1980 (20') -The montage of Eisenstein
1982 (20') -The poetry of A ndrea Ebiricu
1982 (25') -The misanthrope by Moliere
1982 (20') -The apocalypse of sovereign
1992 (25') -The enigmatic Mr Jules
1992 (50')Verne-Nemo Allegory II