Greek International Film Festival tour of Canada: A cinema of memory and light

In theatres crossed Canada, from Toronto to Vancouver, the Greek International Film Festival Tour of Canada, October 19-24, unfolded erstwhile again, carrying with it a uncommon synthesis of creation and identity: a solemnisation not lone of cinema but of belonging.

The festival, present successful its 5th year, has evolved into something much than an yearly showcase of films; it has go a taste span suspended betwixt Greece and its diaspora, an affirmation that the luminous bosom of storytelling still beats successful the Hellenic imagination. 

As Stanley Papulkas, the festival’s enforcement manager and founder, reflected, “It isn’t conscionable an lawsuit that visits cities. It’s an lawsuit that belongs to each of us.”

This year’s tour reached ten Canadian cities – Halifax, Ottawa, Hamilton, London, Winnipeg, Regina, Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, and Toronto – each transformed into an Aegean stage. In each city, audiences gathered to brushwood stories told successful the bushed of their ancestral tongue.

The screenings were accompanied by an awesome roster of visiting artists and filmmakers from Greece and abroad, among them the iconic Vaso Kazantzidi, her granddaughter Vaso, and acclaimed histrion Renos Haralambopoulos, whose beingness evoked the vitality of modern Greek cinema. The festival’s hosts, Dora Konomi, a lawyer and nett vigor producer, and Renos Charalambidis, actor, director, and cinematic philosopher, whose voice became the span successful Toronto, led the last evening with humor, grace, and intelligence.

Haralambidis, who was honored with the GIFFT Legacy Award for his enduring publication to Greek film, spoke little similar an histrion than a writer successful dialog with history. In his remarks, helium touched connected what helium called “the warmth of Romiosyni,” that ineffable Greekness that survives beyond geography oregon creed, arsenic helium said.

“We unrecorded done the Greek language, adjacent if we don’t judge successful God,” helium said. “Orthodoxy is not conscionable theology. It is simply a philosophy. It’s a way of surviving and feeling. Greece is simply a state of ideas, from Plato’s Academy to the past dancer who moves to the bushed of a zeibekiko. Wherever there is simply a Greek soul, there is Romiosyni.”

The spirit down the screen

While Haralambidis gave the festival its philosophical soul, Steve Mirkopoulos, member of the precocious Nick Mirkopoulos, laminitis of Cinespace Film Studios, provided the motivation gravity. He was a wholehearted supporter of GIFFT from the very beginning. 

GIFFT “brings retired the champion successful us. It showcases who we are and who we tin become. The anticipation is that it connects us – Greeks successful the diaspora – with our homeland, Greece. And, of course, I bash this for Nick, arsenic it was his dream,” helium said.

For Mirkopoulos, filmmaking is simply a motivation calling, particularly today. “The world needs much art,” helium said simply. “Because creation is storytelling, and storytelling is however we retrieve who we are.”

Awards and honors

The 2025 GIFFT Film Awards celebrated excellence successful Greek and Canadian cinema, honoring artistry that transcends connection and geography. Among this year’s recipients were:

• Best Feature Film: “Meat,” directed by Dimitris Nakos
• Best Feature Documentary: “Tack,” directed by Vania Turner
• Best Short International Film: “Golden Fingers,” directed by Fivos Kontogiannis
• Best Short Canadian Film: “Rotten,” directed by Telly Bitsakakis
• Best Short Documentary: “Wrestling With Life,” directed by Alexa Bogdanis

Marianna Michalitsianou, Panagiotis Kantzios and their son Dimitri Tsouchlakis received the Festival Pinnacle Award successful designation of their tireless behind-the-scenes work, which has played a important relation successful shaping the identity, spirit and continuity of the festival.

Dimitris Vohaitis is simply a writer based successful Toronto.