Mention the phrase "Greek cinema" to most people, and you're likely to hear more about films that used the olive-drenched countryside and the Aegean Sea as a location backdrop than were actually shot by Greek filmmakers, à la Gabriele Salvatores' achingly sexy Mediterraneo or that other Anthony Quinn film, the much discussed and quickly dismissed Jacqueline Kennedy/Aristotle Onassis biopic The Greek Tycoon. (Counting Mihalis Kakogiannis' high-stepping Zorba the Greek is just too easy.)
Despite Greece being the birthplace of the classical dramatic arts, the 20th century found neighboring Italy stealing the proverbial thunder from Mount Olympus thanks in no small part to Rome's legendary Cinecittà Studios. Fellini we know by heart. Mihalis Kakogiannis, we only know Zorba and his female equivalent, Stella. And as for genre filmmaking? You'd have to bypass Clash of the Titans, which featured Spanish and Italian locations doubling for ancient Greece, and follow the labyrinth to Kostas Karayiannis' 1976 Land of the Minotaur, a fascinating blend of Greek myth, Hammer Films' Peter Cushing and Donald Pleasence, and, we kid you not, a prog-rock score by Brian Eno.
The Austin Film Society's upcoming Essential Cinema series, From the Shadows: Greek Independent Cinema, does more than just shine a light on the fact that indie filmmaking is not only alive and well in the land of the Argonauts but flourishing across a spectrum of styles and visions that range from the fragmenting reality and profound paranoia experienced by the protagonist of Alexis Alexiou's Tale 52 to Yannis Fagras' gritty, profoundly bleak, and seriously underground black-and-white cult hit Still Looking for Morphine.
It's not all doomy chaos and hillside firestorms in the world of contemporary Greek indies, either. Christos Georgiou's Small Crime is an occasionally silly but altogether watchable comedy that hinges on Aris Servetalis' endearingly goofy performance as a cop who dreams of chasing the Athens mob but is instead stuck in a sun-kissed, Aegean paradise dealing with tourists and locals alike. Until, that is, a corpse turns up and leggy Vicky Papadopoulou (the corpse's daughter, natch) returns to her hometown to further complicate matters.
Forget about Amore all'italiana. From the shadows, AFS presents love (and death and drugs and motorcyles), Greek-style.
AFS Essential Cinema: From the Shadows: Greek Independent Cinema runs Tuesdays at 7pm at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar. Admission is free for AFS members and $6 for nonmembers. For more info, visit www.austinfilm.org.
Oct. 13: The Homecoming (I Epistrofi)
Oct. 20: Tale 52 (Istoria 52)
Oct. 27: Small Crime (Mikro Eglima)
Nov. 3: Correction (Diorthosi)
Nov. 10: Still Looking for Morphine
