“Amerika Square” Wins Top Prize at 11th Annual LA Greek Film Festival Orpheus Awards

By ANDREAS IGNATIOU

After five days at the historic Egyptian theater in the heart of Hollywood jam packed with the finest in today’s Greek cinema, “Amerika Square” the film by director Yannis Sakaridis won the jury selected Orpheus Award for best feature. Closing night selection “Son Of Sofia”, directed by Elina Psykou, went home with the Special Jury Prize for features, the runner up prize of the evening.

Both winners shared a common thread: a commentary on the Greek immigrant crisis.

Oscar winning filmaker Alexander Payne received  the Honorary Orpheus, awarded annually to a famous Greek in the entertainment industry. Introduced warmly by Paramount CEO Jim Gianopulos, Mr. Payne took the stage and delivered a rousing speech filled with advice and hope for Greek filmmakers young and old.

“Try to do what you want to do first and you can always fall back on going to law school,” said Payne.

He also discussed his hopes for the future of Greek cinema. “Like you, I look forward to the day more Greek films find an audience outside of

Greece and outside of film festivals. And I am optimistic that this could happen very soon,” he said.

He concluded his speech by sharing five minutes from his upcoming film “Downsizing,” starring Matt Damon and Kristen Wiig, due out from Paramount Pictures in December.

The Orpheus award for best performance was presented to Constantinos Farmakas for his stirring performance as a young boy forced to grow up following a murder investigation in the Cypriot film, “Boy On The Bridge.”  Director Petros Charalambous accepted the award on his behalf.

The runner up special Jury prize for best performance went to Evangelia Andreadaki for her performance in director Elias Demetriou’s moving, “SMAC.”

Actor Simon Kassianides, handed out two awards for best documentaries.  The Orpheus award for best documentary went to Israeli director Danae Elon’s “The Patriarch’s Room,” about the imprisonment of the Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church following accusations of him selling land to Jewish settlers despite his claims of innocence. The runner up Special Jury prize went to directors Dimitris Papageorgiou and Alexandros Spathis for their film “Janus’ Legacy: Refugee Passage to Europe,” about the Greek immigrant crisis, a running theme of the

festival.
Kelly Vlahakis-Hanks, president and CEO of Earth Friendly Products, handed out the Orpheus awards for best short film. First up, The Van Vlahakis award for best short, named for her late father, went to Vangelis Liberopoulos for “Play.” The Special Jury prize was awarded to Konstantina Kotzamani for her film, “Limbo.”

The Audience Award went to director Sotiris Tsafoulias for his gritty crime thriller, “The Other Me,” about a serial murderer who taunts a criminology professor with references to Pythagorean theorems.

The Orpheus awards ceremony was hosted by Greek-American writer/director/comedian Demetri Martin and featured a performance by comedy workshop Wet The Hippo.

The festival, founded by Ersi Danou and Angeliki Giannakopoulos and run by artistic director Aris Katapodis, ran from June 7 to 11, and consisted of 12 feature films, 11 documentary films, 27 short films, five panels and a retrospective screening of Greek film classic, “The Ogre Of Athens” directed by the late Nikos Koundouros.

For more information, visit www.lagff.org