Greek Film Archive, Film archive and museum in Kerameikos, Athens, Greece.
The Greek Film Archive is housed in the Lais cinema in Kerameikos, Athens, and is organised into four departments: laboratories for restoring, conserving and storing archival material, a library, a digital reading room and a museum. Its collection holds more than 10,000 films, of which 600 are Greek productions, alongside photographs, articles, books, screenplays, set models, costumes and advertising material.
Founded in 1963 by royal decree 105/1963 as the Archives of Greek Films–Greek Film Archive, it continued the Athens Cinema Club, set up in 1950 by the Athens Union of Film Critics. Its first president, Aglaia Mitropoulou, obtained many films on loan through her friendship with Henri Langlois of the Cinémathèque Française. On 4 December 2014 the Hellenic Parliament named it the official body safeguarding film heritage.
The archive is housed in the Lais cinema in Kerameikos, where it holds regular screenings and themed retrospectives devoted to actors, periods and Greek- and foreign-language films. Its collection also gathers photographs, articles, books, screenplays, set models, costumes and posters. It is a founding member of the European Film Gateway.
The archive is in the Kerameikos district, which is easy to reach on foot from central Athens. It is worth checking the current program before your visit, as exhibitions and screenings change regularly.
In 2015 the archive was the guest archive of the Cinéma du réel documentary festival at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the third archive so honoured after Chile (2013) and Portugal (2014). Its holdings number more than 10,000 films, of which 600 are Greek productions.
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