The 7th Annual Los Angeles Greek Film Festival – LAGFF to run June 6-9, at the Writers Guild Theater, Beverly Hills announced its 2013 Program.

The program  includes Opening Night film, Spiros Stathoulopoulos’ drama, METEORA, which debuted at this year’s Berlin Film Festival and Closing Night film, Kimon Tsakiris’ (SUGARTOWN) documentary, MITSIGAN – HARDSHIPS AND BEAUTIES.

Spiros Stathoulopoulos’  US premiere of the period drama, METEORA, starring Theo Alexander (TRUE BLOOD) is set in a 12th century monastery in Greece. METEORA, an official selection of the Berlin Film Festival is the story of an illicit love affair between a Greek Orthodox monk and a Russian Orthodox nun.

Kimon Tsakiris’ new film, MITSIGAN – HARDSHIPS & BEAUTIES, is about Mitsos “Mitsigan” Tsiganos, a modern-day Greek cowboy and the owner of “Hardships & Beauties”, a vegetable and fruit farm in southwestern Greece. The story follows Mitsigan on a journey throughout that region’s farming area, as he meets with old and new friends and comes to the realization that his country will never be the same again.

Other featured films on the lineup include is Ektoras Lygizos’ award-winning drama, BOY EATING THE BIRD’S FOOD, which won this year’s Hellenic Film Academy Award for Best Film and the prestigious European Crossing Award in the European Competition.  BOY, which marks Lygizos’ feature directorial debut, is a modern-day adaptation of Knut Hamsun’s classic 1890 novel, Hunger, which follows a young outcast desperately trying to survive on the streets of Athens.

LAGFF 2013 will also feature the US premiere of Panagiotis Evangelidis’ documentary, THEY GLOW IN THE DARK, shot in post-Katrina New Orleans, about Michael and Jim, two middle-aged gay friends and ex-lovers, penniless and with HIV, who reunite after twenty years.  THEY GLOW IN THE DARK won the 2013 FIPRESCI Prize at this year’s Thessaloniki Documentary Festival.

FEATURES

AMERICA, AMERICA
USA, 1963, 174 min
Retrospective
Director/Writer: Elia Kazan
Cast: Stathis Giallelis, Frank Wolff, Harry Davis, Elena Karam
At the end of the 19th century in a small village in Turkey, when oppression against the Greek minority increases, a father, plotting his family’s escape, sends his young son to Constantinople to make money and get the family to join him. But the son’s own dream is different: America…
*1964 Academy-Award winner, Best Art Direction (B&W)
*1964 Academy-Award nominations for: Best Director, Best Picture, Best Writing, Story and Screenplay – Elia Kazan

A.C.A.B (ALL CATS ARE BRILLIANT) – (Sygharitiria stous Aisiodoxous)
Greece, 2012, 83 min, US Premiere
Director/Writer: Constantina Voulgaris
Producer: Eleni Afentaki, Greek Film Centre, MITOS, ERT
Principal Cast: Maria Georgiadou, Kostas Ganotis, Dimitris Xanthopoulos
A young woman living in Athens tries to find herself amid the demands of her boyfriend, who has a radical political agenda, and her parents, whose only hope is that their daughter begins a career. In the meantime, a tender relationship develops between her and an eight-year-old friend. 

BOY EATING BIRD’S FOOD (To Agori Troei to Fagito tou Pouliou)
Greece, 2012, 80 min, LA Premiere
Writer/Director: Ektoras Lygizos
Producers: Stefi Productions, Guanaco, Ektoras Lygizos
Cast: Yannis Papadopoulos, Lila Baklesi, Kleopatra Perraki
A personal take on Knut Hamsun’s classic 1890 novel “Hunger” follows a young man desperately trying to preserve his sense of dignity and overcome demoralizing hunger and loneliness in the streets of Athens.
*2012 Karlovy Vary Int’l Film Festival, Special Mention for Yannis Papadopoulos
*2012 Toronto Int’l Film Festival, Association Quebecoise des Critiques de Cinéma Award
*2013 Crossing Europe Linz, Crossing Europe Award – European Competition
*2013 Hellenic Film Academy, Best Film, Best New Director, Best Actor,
*2014 Greece’s Foreign Language Film Academy Award Entry

FYNBOS
South Africa, 2012, 96 min, US Premiere
Director: Harry Patramanis
Writers: Jonathan Kyle Glatzer, Harry Patramanis
Producers: Eleni Asvesta, Stefanos Fotiadis, Marios Fotiadis, Philip Key
Cast: Warrick Grier, Jessica Haines, Susan Danford, Sthandiwe Kgoroge, CaraRoberts, John Herbert, Chad Philips
On a lavish and remote property in South Africa, within the walls of a glass house, six lives intersect and lay bare their secrets in this twisting drama.
*2013 Berlin Int’l Film Festival, Official Selection
*2013 Slamdance Film Festival, Vision Award for Cinematography

METEORA
Germany/Greece/France, 2012, 85 min, US Premiere
Opening Night Presentation
Director: Spiros Stathoulopoulos
Writers: Asimakis Pagidas, Spiros Stathoulopoulos
Producers: Philippe Bobber, Susanne Marian, Spiros Stathoulopoulos, Asimakis Pagidas, Theo Alexander, Yolanda Markopoulou
In the plains of central Greece, Byzantine monasteries are perched atop sandstone pillars, suspended between heaven and earth. A young Greek monkand a Russian nun have devoted their lives to the strict rituals and practices of their community, but a growing affection for one another puts their monastic life under question. Torn between spiritual devotion and their human desire, they must decide which path to follow.
*2012 Berlin Int’l Film Festival, Official Selection

THE DAUGHTER (I Kori)
Greece/Italy, 2012, 87 min, US Premiere
Director: Thanos Anastopoulos
Writers: Thanos Anastopoulos, Vassilis Giatsis
Producers: Fantasia LTD, Mansarda Production
When a 14-year-old girl finds out that her father has fled to avoid his debts, she kidnaps the 8-year-old son of her father’s business partner. The Greek economic crisis touches and changes forever many facets of the family’s nucleus. How will the new generation react? How is it reacting?
*2013 Berlin International Film Festival, Forum Screening
*2013 Hellenic Film Academy Awards, Best Directing, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography

WELCOME TO ALL SAINTS (Ap ta Kokkala Vgalmena)
Greece, 2011, 88 min, LA Premiere
Director: Sotoris Goritsas
Producer: Constantinos Moriatis
Cast: Argiris Xafis, Dimitris Immelos, Anna Kufsaftiki, Kostas Berikopoulos, Minas Xatzisavvas, Giorgos Simeonidis, Dimitri Xanthopoulos, Vangelis Mourikis
A young medical intern begins his career at the “All Saints Hospital” in Athens, only to discover that everyone who works in the Greek public sector is part of a monstrous bureaucracy and an absurd tragicomedy.

DOCUMENTARIES

AMNESIA DIARIES (Imerologio Amnesias)
Greece, 2012, 105 min, US Premiere
Director/Writer/Cinematographer: Stella Theodoraki
A woman reflects upon her leisurely past and frantic present, gradually coming to a realization that concerns each and every one of us, just asintimately as it does her.
*2013 Hellenic Film Academy Awards, Best Documentary

FOOD FOR LOVE
Greece, 2013, 52 min, US Premiere
Director: Marianna Economou
Producer: Lilette Botassi
Some Greek mothers show their love by regularly preparing veritable feasts for their children, who attend university some distance away from home.

LITTLE LAND
Greece, 2013, 52 min, US Premiere
Director: Nikos Dayandas
Writers: Nikos Dayandas, Yuri Averof
Producers: Rea Apostolides, Yuri Averof
A 35-year-old unemployed Athenian settles on the remote island of Ikaria. There, he discovers a society with a unique culture based on autonomy and cooperation, and blessed with peace and exceptional longevity.

MITSIGAN – HARDSHIPS & BEAUTIES (Mitsigan – Omorfies & Dyskolies)
Greece/France, 2013, 60 min, US Premiere
Closing Night Presentation
Director/Writer:  Kimon Tsakiris
Producers: Christos V. Konstantakopoulos, Kimon Tsakiris
When Mitsos Tsiganos, nicknamed “Mitsigan”, a modern-day Greek cowboy and owner of “Hardships & Beauties” vegetable farm, is struck by both professional and personal crisis, he decides to go on a short road trip in search of signs of hope.

ONE STEP AHEAD (Ena Vima Brosta)
Greece, 2012, 126 min, US Premiere
Director: Dimitris Athiridis
Producers: Maria Drandraki, Dimitris Athiridis
Yiannis Boutaris, a successful winemaker and the maverick mayoral candidate for Thessaloniki, Greece’s second largest city, faces his enemies within and without with equal courage and uncompromising honesty.
*2012 IDFA, Official Selection

THEY GLOW IN THE DARK (Lampoun sto Skotadi)
Greece, 2013, 69 min, US Premiere
Director/Writer/Cinematography:  Panagiotis Evangelidis
Producers: Amanda Livanou, Panagiotis Evangelidis
Two HIV-positive middle-aged gay friends barely make a living in post-Katrina New Orleans by selling hand-made figures of the Cajun pantheon. Their extravagant past lives fade before their present commitment to survive together until death do them part.
*15th Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival, Fipresci Prize