4th Athens Open Air Film Festival – A Unique Experience!

Do you want to experience something unique? Then visit Athens, the capital city of Greece, and get fascinated with the 4th Athens Open Air Film Festival, which is being currently held in this picturesque and historic city.

Greece is renowned world over for its ancient monuments, gorgeous beaches and beautiful islands. But the country has much more to offer to its visitors. The open air cinemas are a major draw among the tourists as well. The ideal climate of Greece has been the sole reason for the flourishing open air cinemas over the past several years.

The 4th Athens Open Air Film Festival, which is being held from June 20 to September 4, 2014, offers a great opportunity to the local Athenians as well as thousands of tourists from different parts of the world to enjoy free screenings of a wide range of modern and old-time classic films.

The film festival is taking place at some of the magnificent and unusual locations across the city of Athens. Some of the famous open air movie theaters and unusual places where the film festival is being held include the Byzantium and Christian Museum, the Monetary Museum, Nea Smymi Park, Mesolongiou Square, Avdi Square, Plato's Academy Park, Petralona Park, Rematia Chalandriou Theater, and the Dionysiou Areopagitou pedestrian street.

The Greek National Tourism Organization, like the past three editions, is also supporting the 4th Athens Open Air Film Festival. By holding the open air film festival for the fourth time, Greece is appropriately showcasing its local talents and promoting itself on a global level. The film festival for the second consecutive year opened with a Greek film “Two Faces of January” directed by Hossein Amini. The film has been mostly shot in the capital city of Athens as well as another Greek city Crete. The film prominently features the famous archaeological sites of the Pantheon and Knossos, and the winding streets of Plaka. The film is starring Viggo Mortensen and Kirsten Dunst, and prominently highlights the performances of many young Greek actors including Eugenia Dimitropoulou, Omiros Poulakis, Nikos Mavrakis and Sokratis Alafouzos.

The 4th Open Air Film Festival has a special place for the Greek cinema. The visitors to this film festival will get an opportunity to watch Greek films produced by an assortment of directors, who have played a prominent role in changing the face of the Greek film industry.

The film festival has an impressive line-up. The film “On connait la chanson” produced by French avant-garde director Alain Resnais will mark the Bastille Day celebrations on July 14, 2014. Another major highlight of the film festival will be the screening of all-time classic “Magic City” produced by Nikos Koundouros on August 26, 2014 at Dourgouti. The will be a special moment for the film festival this year as the film “Magic City” will be shown exactly at the same place where it was originally shot in 1954.

The film festival will offer a unique experience to the audience with its rare all-time classics from Hollywood’s Golden Era thus bringing a touch of class to Athens. The U.S. Embassy in Greece will be supporting this event, which will screen noted Hollywood heavyweights of yesteryears.

The Athens Open Air Film Festival has for the 3rd consecutive year collaborated with the Greek Film Center for producing five short films under a common theme “20”, which can either be a symbol, a duration, an age or a number, depending on the five filmmakers interpretation.

Among other films to be prominently screened at the 4th Athens Open Air Film Festival include "Groundhog Day" by Harold Ramis, "Back Door" by Giorgos Tsemberopoulos, "Being There" by Hal Ashby, "All That Jazz" by Bob Fosse, "The Warriors" by Walter Hill, "Suddenly Last Summer" by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, "Let the Women Wait" by Stavros Tsiolis, "Acropol" by Pantelis Voulgaris, "Sorcerer" by William Friedkin, "Chinatown" by Roman Polanski, "Do the Right Thing" by Spike Lee, "Lucifer Rising" & "Scorpio Rising" by Kenneth Anger, "Zarafa" by Bezancon & Lie, and "Parvas" by Gerasimos Rigas.

The first edition of Athens Open Air Film Festival was screened in the summer of 2011. Ever since, the film festival has become the biggest summer event in Athens. The prime motive of the film festival was to offer opportunity to the local Athenians and tourists from around the world to explore those places in the city that hitherto remained unexplored or just ignored. These places where the film festival is now being held include pedestrian streets, squares and parks, as well as most characteristic monuments of Attica. The main concept of the film festival is also to revive the golden times of Athens when the cinema was primarily a touring show around the villages and towns of Greece.

The 4th Athens Open Air Film Festival will be attracting more than 30,000 people from Greece and various parts of the world. This year more than 60 films will be screened at the film festival at over 35 venues across Athens.