Visit Greece

Through the exclusive use of newsreels from the Soviet archives, the film attempts a historical retrospective from the era of the Metaxas dictatorship (1936-1941) to the colonels’ junta (1967-1974). Without being a “historical” film in the narrow sense of the word, Visit Greece satirizes and lampoons tragic instances of the country’s recent history, when various “tourists” visited Greece, uninvited and invariably armed, in order to establish on Greek soil a regime of their liking.
Screening Schedule

No physical screenings scheduled.


Script: Fotos Lamprinos
Editing: Ala Chukalova
Sound: Ala Chukalova
Music: Fotos Lamprinos (selection)
Production: VGIK, Moscow
Format: Betacam B&W
Production Country: Greece
Production Year: 1969
Duration: 25

Fotos Lamprinos

He studied Film in Moscow (1965–1970). From 1970 to 1973, he thoroughly researched twenty-two governmental and private film archives in Europe and the United States, in search of newsreel material referring to Greece between 1911–1971. In 1973, he collaborated with Theo Angelopoulos on the scenario for Angelopoulos’s film The Traveling Players. From 1975 to 1997, he directed over 50 documentaries for the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT), including Panorama of the Century’s thirty-three 30-minute episodes narrating the news in Greece and the world from 1895 to 1940, based exclusively on newsreel material; a series of twenty documentaries on the disintegration of the Soviet Union (1989–1990); and a seven-episode documentary, Beauty Will Save the World (1991), which chronicled the parallel journey of the Russian State and the Russian Orthodox Church from the 10th century to our time. In 1981μ Lamprinos filmed a feature-length documentary for the screen entitled Aris Velouchiotis: The Dilemma, about the Resistance during the German occupation. His fiction film Doxobus (1987) referred to the 14th-century Byzantine province by the same name and the civil war of that period. In 1995 he produced and directed Birthday Celebration or a Silent Balkan Story, a documentary dedicated to the centenary of cinema and made up of footage from Balkan silent movies (1895–1930). His films have received awards in Greece and abroad. Lamprinos created the first Greek user-friendly archive of old newsreels (1997–2000), which is housed at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. From 1993 to 2003, he taught about the Relationship between History and Cinema at various universities in Greece.

Filmography

1963-1964 100 Hours in May (short doc)
1969 Visit Greece (short)
1975 Ermoupolis – 9th Century (doc)
1980 Medieval Villages on Chios (doc)
1981 Aris Velouchiotis – The Dilemma (doc)
1981–1987 Panorama of the Century (33-doc. TV series)
1987 Doxobus (fiction)
1989 Struggle at Sea
1989 Ancient Rhodes
1991 Beauty Will Save the World (TV series)
1995 Birthday Celebration or a Silent Balkan Story
2005 My Power Lies in the Love of the Lens
2008 Captain Kemal, a Comrade