The fate of Greece’s participation in this season’s international feature film Oscar race hangs in the balance after a chaotic selection committee process has left the culture ministry and Hellenic Film Academy (Helfiac) at loggerheads.
Helfiac president Lefteris Charitos told Screen on Thursday night that the ministry’s behaviour “undermines the selection proceedings and forces us to distance ourselves from them” after the government department rescinded its invitations to a four-person selection committee in early August and replaced them with a new group.
The original committee members – Vassilis Kekatos, winner of the 2019 Cannes short film Palme d’Or for The Distance Between Us And The Sky, critic Leda Galanou, actress Kora Karvounis and screenwriter Kallia Papadakis – had already received links to the 23 submissions when they got their marching orders.
Helfiac cried foul, and the producers of 20 submissions pulled out of the process. At a press conference on Thursday, deputy culture minister Iason Fotilas blamed a civil servant for the confusion and said he learned about the situation “by chance”. He said he promptly formed a new committee and ordered an internal investigation into the bureaucrat’s actions.
Speaking exclusively to Screen, Fotilas accepted that the “problem originated at the ministry, but I was unable to accept such a breach of proceedings without losing my credibility, thus I had to name a new committee”.
Fotilas insisted he was ready to talk with Helfiac to reach an agreement over the identity of two more people to be added to the new committee and asked the producers to resubmit their films.
However, it seems Helfiac will not be appeased. Charitos told Screen, “The ministry’s explanations do not convince us; its behaviour undermines the selection proceedings and forces us to distance ourselves from them at the same time that the absence of a Greek film from the Academy Awards will be the result of the ministry’s dubious behaviour.”
The Academy has issued an open letter asking for the Greek selection process to be cancelled for the upcoming 97th Academy Awards in March 2025 and for no Greek film to be submitted.
It reiterated a prior request that the selection process be handed over to the Academy.
The statement from Charitos comes amid industry chatter that industry politics may lie behind the ministry’s decision to replace the original committee.
Twenty producers including Athina Rachel Tsangari, producer of Ioanna Tsoucala’s Ladies In Waiting, wrote in an open letter that “the ministry interventions on the selection committee casts serious doubts on the credibility and validity of the process”. It added, “[W]e refuse to cooperate in opaque actions, which discredit Greek cinema and its professionals, and we are forced to withdraw our films from the above process.”
At time of writing it was unclear what will happen next. If the ministry insists on proceeding and the new committee chooses one of the three remaining films – Fonissa by Eva Nathena, Minore by Konstantinos Koutsoliotas or Captain Michalis by Kostas Charalambous – Helfiac may challenge the legitimacy of the selection.
The 97th annual Academy Awards will take place on March 2, 2025.
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