Third Annual New York City Greek Film Festival Presents Free Screenings

THIRD ANNUAL NEW YORK CITY GREEK FILM FESTIVAL TO PRESENT FREE SCREENINGS OF AWARD-WINNING DOCUMENTARY The New York City Greek Film Festival , in cooperation with  the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, will present three free screenings of the award-winning documentary “The Night Fernando Pessoa Met Constantine Cavafy.”    The first two showings will be on Tuesday,  November 3, at 7 and 9 p.m., The third is set for Saturday,  November 7 at 3 p.m. All screenings will be held at the Cinema Village, 22 East 12 Street,  just east of Fifth Avenue. Seating is limited and will be on a first-come first-served basis.        Directed by Stelios Charalambopoulos, the film examines the claim of Vassilis Kapopoulos  that  as a young man in 1929 aboard a luxury liner heading for the United States, he witnessed a meeting between the Portuguese poet Pessoa and the Greek poet Cavafy.  Blending  narrative and documentary film techniques, the film recreates that alleged meeting and investigates it. In the process, the poetry of the two great artists is explored, and parallels are drawn between the lives of the two poets.    Critics and viewers alike in Greece have praised the film as a successful blending of the arts of poetry and cinema,  noting in particular the rich depiction of the time period it recreates.  The film was awarded  the National Prize  as best documentary in Thessaloniki in 2008.    As an added attraction, the screenings on November 3 will be hosted by noted Cavafy scholar George Syrimis,  Associate Chair of the Hellenic Studies Program at Yale University. Prof.Syrimis, who  has written extensively on the poetry of Cavafy and is currently working on a comparative thematic  study of Cavafy and Kazantzaki, will conduct brief discussions about the film after the screenings.    The free showings are among the special events planned for this year’s New York City Greek Film Festival. Sponsored by the Hellenic American  Chamber of Commerce with the support  of the Foreign Ministry of the Hellenic Republic, the  Stavros Niarchos Foundation and other donors, the festival will present eleven new films from Greece and three “modern classics.”  All films are shown with English subtitles. Regular performances run at the Cinema Village from November 6 through 12. The following week, November 13 through 19, the festival will be at the CineMart Cinema, 106-03 Metropolitan Avenue, in Forest Hills, Queens. The festival closes on Saturday,November 21  with a special free screening at the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in Astoria.       Complete information is available at www.nycgreekfilmfestival.com or at 212-988-1929.                #


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The Hellenic American Chamber of Commerce is a non-for-profit organization based in New York City. It promotes cultural and commercial ties between Greece and the United States.

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