In Celebration of the 5th Annual Hellenic Cultural Month, the Hellenic Student Association at the University of Michigan presents to the community free screenings of Greek films during the month of October.All four films have been brought over directly from Greece, and have had only a limited number of screenings in the United States.

Friday, 10/7, 7:30–9:30pm, Angell Hall Auditorium C
Politiki Kouzina (A Touch of Spice) (2003, 108’). In this film, food serves as a metaphor for life and love as well as Greco-Turkish relations in one of Greece’s ever biggest domestic box office hits. This film moves between present day Athens and Istanbul of the late 50’s and early 60’s. Fanis, a young Greek boy, grows up in Istanbul.  His grandfather, a culinary philosopher, teaches him that both food and life both require a touch of spice to give them flavor. He grows up to become an excellent cook and uses his skills to land a job at the local brothel.  However his happiness ends when in 1965, his family along with other Greek citizens are deported from Turkey. Fanis’s ultimate reunion with his grandfather is far different than either would have predicted.

Friday, 10/21, 7:30–9:30pm, Angell Hall Auditorium C
Silicon Tears (To Klama Vgike apo ton Paradeiso) (2002, 101’). This is a story of two Greek families in conflict: one the Delafranga family, being very wealthy and lucky, and the other, Bisbiki family, being poor but struck by fate. The themes of this tear jerker film include: incorruptible lawyers, society babes, working class guys, sunken ships, marriages of convenience. Most of the story takes place in  '65-'70, while there are two flashbacks: the first to the Occupation, where the way in which the old Greek films presented the national resistance against the German invaders is ridiculed and the second features the turn of the 20th century and the era of folk movies. 

Sunday, 10/23, 3-5:30pm, Angell Hall Auditorium C
Guardians of Time (Filakes Tou Hronou) (2002, 61’). This is a film featuring seven guardians of Greece's archaeological sites. Plain folk of toil, who worked next to famous archaeologists, had absorbed their knowledge to honor the concept of cultural continuity beyond the borders of identities. It entails a journey in the archaeological sites through their own memories and eye-witness accounts.  It features an attempt to record their perception of History that traverses Time in order to become life experienced.  Our Homeland is our Childhood (Et in Arcadia Ego) (2000, 75’). The film is a journey, a return to Arcadia. It shows the cultural continuity between the eternal historical meanings and the ordinary contemporary people. Childhood memories awaken along the way and mingle with the ordinary people, the myths and the history of the place.  It is a passage from one situation to another, and not a local itinerary. All around Nature speaks, as do the mythologies, Romantic poets, ordinary people, and changing seasons.

The film screenings are supported in part by the University of Michigan’s Modern Greek Program and the Foundation of Modern Greek Studies, CP Cavafy Professorship.

HSA represents students of Greek ethnic origin, promoting the Hellenic culture at the U-M Ann Arbor campus and encouraging a diverse student membership giving members the opportunity to be immersed in Hellenic culture. Cultural month is a time when HSA particularly educates the Ann Arbor community about Modern Greek culture.  For more information about the Hellenic Student Association, please visit www.umich.edu/~hellas/