Introduction

The Film Archive of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, scheduled to open in May 1999, illustrates and records highly diverse aspects of Greek and International 20^th Century History. It is the first archive in Greece to have identified and data-processed 100% of its collection.

The archive was founded in 1997, following important donation by director M. Kakoyiannis as well as a collection of newsreels dating from the begining of this century, in order to meet the pressing demand for an organized user-friendly historical film archive. Over a period of more than two years each shot was identified, rearranged and classified. This time consuming undertaking was necessary, as none of the reels were documented, and on many occasions different shots of the same event were often on different reels of film.

Contents

The film collection covers the political and social history of almost all of 20th century Greece. It includes the documentaries of the Manakia Brothers filmed in the Balkans at the turn of the century, the Balkan Wars ( 1912-1913), the Greco-Turkish War ( 1919-1922), the Inter-War Period, the Metaxas Dictatorship ( 1936-1941 ), the 1940 's German Occupation, Resistance, Liberation, Civil War, Post-war Greece (1949-1967) and the Colonel's Dictatorship (1967-1974). In addition to the events in Greece the footage also covers important international events such as the First World War, the Russian Revolution, the Inter-war Period, the Third Reich and the Second World War. Among the holdings of the collection is rare footage depicting the invasion of the Turkish forces in Cyprus in the summer of 1974 donated by M. Kakoyiannis.

Data Bank of Greek Footage Located Around the World

Our archive offers a comprehensive catalogue of footage about Greece ( I 911-1971 ) located in 22 public and private archives around the world (Pathe, Gaumont, Imperial War Museum, Fox, etc). This catalogue was compiled from 1970-1973 by Fotos Lambrinos with the support and supervision of film director Kostas Gavras.

How to search and see the collection

A viewer' s room equipped with two computers and four TV monitors will be open to interested researchers, film-makers, TV producers, and historians, ethnologists, anthropologists, architects and others. The user will be able to search the data-processed information using any word of his choice (proper nouns, verbs, and adjectives). Viewing will be made fiom VHS tapes. The costs of acquiring rights for TV producers and directors can be obtained fiom the archive. For any additional information please contact:

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Service of Historical Archives

Film Archive

3, Zalocosta st.

Tel. 3635239 - 3683351

Fax 3620232