“In Greece there are things happening that it’s (sic) not only about ‘Live your myth in Greece”.
This is how Yorgos Zois, the Greek director of sci-fi drama ‘Arcadia’, started his speech after winning Best Director at the Sarajevo Film Festival on 23 August.
It was a day after the mass resignation of 23 out of the 25 Greek creators of films eligible to be Greece’s submission at the 97th Academy Awards.
The director drew parallels between the Greek government response to the recent wildfires and the train tragedy at Tempi, with the Culture Ministry’s handling of the Oscar selection process.
His statement on the issue echoes the one publicly declared by the Greek Film Academy, industry unions and the 23 filmmakers who withdrew from the process.
“Yesterday in our cinematic field, almost all directors and their producers withdrew their films for the Greek Oscar nomination because the Jury was suddenly and with no explanation released from its duties, with another disputable one to replace it,” Zois said.
“Once again the Ministry did not hear the Greek Academy and the workers of the film industry and they put the blame on one employee of the Ministry.”
Timeline of events which led to ‘Greek Oscar Committee Chaos’
Zois’ speech featured in an article by Variety magazine reporting on what it termed the Greek Oscar “selection fiasco”, while Deadline, another A-list entertainment publication, wrote of the “Greek Oscar Committee Chaos”.
The chain of events started unfolding on 11 August, when four Greek film professionals received an email invitation by the Greek Ministry for Culture to serve as committee members for selecting the country’s submission to the Oscars.
Film critic Leda Galanou, actress Kora Karvounis, screenwriter Kallia Papadakis and filmmaker Vasilis Kekatos, who was appointed committee president, accepted the invitation, and received online links to view this year’s selection of films. The links are privy only to a designated jury due to copyright reasons.
But two days later, the committee received a new email by the Ministry informing them that their appointment was communicated “inadvertently” and had “not been finalised”.
A replacement committee of seven members was formed and publicly announced on the Greek government ‘Diavgeia’ platform sealing the administrative decision.
Committee members included Asimina Proedrou, director of last year’s Greek Oscar submission “Behind the Haystacks,” who announced her resignation on 19 August, stating her refusal “to legitimise” the “unacceptable processes” of the Ministry in forming the committee.
In her announcement, Proedrou stood by the Hellenic Film Academy’ long-standing demand to take over the Oscar selection process, from the Ministry’s hands.
Another committee member resignation, of actor Vassilis Charalambopoulos, followed.
On 21 August, the creators of 23 out of the 25 Greek candidate films, withdrew from the Oscar race in an open letter addressed to Minister for Culture Lina Mendoni and Deputy Minister Iasonas Fotilas.
They cited “a series of interventions during the selection committee formation, interventions triggering serious doubts on the credibility and validity of the process”.
“We refuse to be part of actions lacking transparency, devaluing Greek cinema and its professionals,” the cohort of signatories wrote.
Meanwhile, the Hellenic Film Academy publicly denounced the move.
In a joint announcement, industry peak bodies representing directors and producers issued a scathing critique against the Ministry’s actions, which they said created “speculation over manipulated processes” and asked that the Ministry clarify the rationale behind the decision.
Deputy Minister Iasonas Fotilas responded with a press conference on 21 August passing on the responsibility for the mixup with an initial committee appointed, then revoked, to a Ministry administrative employee who he said had acted “outside the legal requirements” of the process when they emailed the initial committee members.
Fotilas added that a disciplinary enquiry was underway.
According to Variety, a letter penned by a union of Ministry employees accused Fotilas of “looking for scapegoats” to deflect responsibility burdening him and government officials.
The unionists’ letter reportedly stated that the employee had been “unfairly targeted” after having performed their duties “with integrity and diligence, conscientiously and with sensitivity to meritocracy and transparency.”
Following the press conference, the Hellenic Film Academy issued another open letter criticizing the Deputy Minister’s response which it said left unanswered their two previously submitted questions regarding the replacement of the initial committee:
“Who and why [sic] made the decision?”, and whether there were “any pressures exerted on the Ministry for Culture to replace committee members?”
Oscars tensions “just the tip of the iceberg”
In a statement provided to Variety, Deputy Minister Fotilas insisted he had “no problem with the [Hellenic Film] academy or the producers”, but rather the procedure with which the initial Oscar selection committee was appointed.
He reportedly told the masthead he was open to handing over the Oscar selection process to the Hellenic Film Academy adding that he would change the law “today, if it’s possible”.
But in their back-and-forth open letter correspondence with the Ministry, the Academy has claimed that as per article 35 of the respective bill (3905/2010) the Oscar selection process is determined by way of Ministerial decision with no requirement for legislative change.
Speaking to Variety, producer Maria Drandaki, member of an industry delegation that met with Ministry officials in the meantime, said “the Oscars fiasco is just “the tip of the iceberg.”
“This whole mishandling of the situation is getting combined with the tension that was here in the audiovisual sector for months now.”
In their latest open letter, the Academy asked that this year’s Oscar selection process be cancelled, with Greece not submitting a film to compete.
Conceding it’s a “very radical proposal at a huge cost for the Greek film industry”, they said it’s a cost that their “community is willing to pay in order to protect its integrity and self-respect against a state which whenever decides to engage with it, does so with arrogance”.
They pointed to long-standing issues of tension between the Ministry and the sector going beyond the Oscars friction, including the “underfunding of the Greek Film Center” – the organisation formerly responsible for domestic film production – the “malfunctions of EKOME” – the country’s National Center of Audiovisual Media and Communication, managing a 40% cash rebate scheme for eligible audiovisual works produced in Greece – and the merger of the two “pending since April and thus gradually posing an existential threat to the sector”.
Will there be a Greek Oscar submission in the end?
As it stands, there is only one aspect undisputed by all: the Oscars 2 October submission deadline for International Feature Films.
The Greek Ministry for Culture has set 13 September as the cut-off date for the country’s submission by the commission.
Unless something drastic changes by then, there are only two eligible remaining films for the spot, following the withdrawal of the rest 23 initial contenders: ‘Fonissa’ (The Murderess) and ‘Kapetan Michalis’.
And word on the cinema street is, the odds-on favourite is clear, with at least two of the Ministry-appointed committee members (one of whom had been stood down by the Hellenic Film Academy over reportedly ‘sexist’ public statements amidst a Greek ‘revenge porn’ news story in 2022) having publicly expressed their admiration for ‘Fonissa’.
As of early September, there were no official updates as to where the selection process currently sits.
It’s only a matter of days for the last act to be played in the Greek drama of the 97th Academy Awards.
But one could argue that the most intriguing scenes were set in the backstage.
*Neos Kosmos reached out to Greek film industry insiders but has chosen not to include information shared in off-the-record conversations for transparency and accountability reasons, instead providing a comprehensive explainer of the topic as covered by international and Greek media outlets.
