Theo Angelopoulos in Zagori

Theo Angelopoulos, the noted Greek fim director, returned to the Zagori a few weeks ago (on 8 August) to give a talk at Kato Pedina. His first feature film, Anaparastasis (Reconstruction, 1970) was filmed in the villages of Vitsa and Monodendri, and in Ioannina, between November 1969 and February 1970. He hadn't been back to the region for 40 years, it seems, although a number of attempts had been made to ask him to return to give a talk. He'd never forgotten the rain-darkened stones of Vitsa, he said, and the voice of an old person singing "mori kondoula lemonia". A very different Vitsa...


In Ioannina, Travelling Players, 1975; Soutsou Street: