Interview with Leonidas Christopoulos, CEO of EKKOMED

We spoke to Leonidas Christopoulos, CEO of EKKOMED (the Hellenic Film Audiovisual Centre), right after the panel “Greece on Screen,” where Christopoulos was one of the panelists, together with Orestis Andreadakis, the Artistic Director of the Thessaloniki International Film Festival.

Greece in the Spotlight on the International Scene

Greece was on every screen this summer thanks to Odyssey by Christopher Nolan. Now it is the Country in Focus in Venice, it will be hosting the European Film Awards next January, and it will be the Country of Honour of the Cannes Marché du Film 2027.

Two years ago, the Greek Film Centre and Ekome merged to form a unique institutional body, EKKOMED (Hellenic Film Audiovisual Centre). Christopoulos spoke about the ambitions of the next five-year strategy, for which the film industry can count on €750M, to be invested across four axes: Funding; Internationalization; Education, Innovation and Audiovisual Heritage; and Technical and Institutional development.

EKKOMED’s Expansive Strategy and Audiovisual Fusion Approach

The €750 million were approved by the government in April, says Christopoulos, and legislated in early August. The plans are ambitious: he explains that, now that the budget has increased, the intention is to go out into the world and show that Greece is placing the audiovisual sector alongside its most traditional economic sectors. Visual creativity enters the table. He adds that, as boundaries within the creative industries are fading, “also our policies should adjust consequently” — what they call the Audiovisual Fusion approach.

A Growing Number of Greek Projects in Festivals and Markets

There are many Greek projects in the selection of the festival and in the Venice Gap Financing Market. “Being selected by big festivals, they are becoming stories of the world,” says Christopoulos. He mentions A Day in the Life of Jo: Chapter Phaedra by Jacqueline Lentzou and the short Tropic of the Mourning Gecko by Stavros Markoulakis (both in Orizzonti Competition).

The projects in the VGFM are: African Grey by Yorgos Goussis, Lionfish by Thanasis Trouboukis, Patrimonial Fears and Other Illusions by Elina Psykou, The Smugglers by Kaveh Bakhtiari, Wake by Thelyia Petraki, The Mysteries of Eleusis by John Fitzgerald and Simon Critchley (Venice Immersive), and Visitor by Spyros Boukas (Biennale College Immersive Cinema).

The next appointment for Greece at the VPB will be September 6th at 2pm, on the Immersive Island, with the panel “Greece and the Future of Immersive Storytelling.”