Glory Sky

Takis Kanellopoulos’ first feature film, written in partnership with Giorgos Kitsopoulos, is a composite of true stories drawn from the epic events of 1940. Taking the form of a thrilling anti- war film, it exchanges action on the front line for the poetry that lies behind it, and stereotypical cinematic heroism for a radical take on human bravery. With Glory Sky, Kanellopoulos in reality forges a new filmic language that incorporates, in equal parts, the cinema of the Soviet Union and the French New Wave, Andrzej Wajda and Alain Resnais, while also retaining the salient, self-luminous hallmarks that were the melancholy of Macedonian Wedding and the bitter-sweet celebratory air of Thasos to deliver truly modern, independent, and fathomlessly moving cinema. A film bold in almost its every decision and political in multiple ways, foremost among them the claim laid to a sense of Greekness and patriotism that even today seems to verge on heresy. In contention for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1963, Glory Sky established Kanellopoulos in the pantheon of international modernists and would stand as an iconic bridge on the path towards a new Greek cinema.