Honorary Golden Alexander to Nikos Grammatikos

Amidst a warm and moving ambiance, Nikos Grammatikos received the honorary Golden Alexander on Monday, November 9th, within the framework of the 67th Thessaloniki International Film Festival, in recognition of his overall contribution to cinema and Greek culture.

The director, who left his own indelible mark on Greek cinema, dedicated the award to the “Truants” from his own life, noting that it was the most important award he has ever received. Present at the screening were the cast and crew of Truants, which was shown in universally accessible terms in collaboration with Alpha Bank, TFF’s Accessibility Sponsor.

The Festival’s Artistic Director, Orestis Andreadakis, invited on stage the President of the Board of Director, Akis Sakellariou, who remarked: “We pay tribute to, first and foremost, a friend, and by general consensus, to a person who left a lasting impression on a lot of the people gathered here today in this theater. This evening seems a lot like a reunion, 30 years later.”

“I remember that in 1991, here at the Thessaloniki Film Festival, we watched a film, after which everyone in the theater seemed to sense that something was shifting,” Orestis Andreadakis stated. “I was also in the audience,” Akis Sakellariou added. “I recall sitting on the balcony and feeling, upon watching U-Turn, the turning of a page. On the one hand, I found myself thinking that, finally, there was a director I’d love to work with and, on the other, that, at long last, something new was happening.”

Orestis Andreadakis reminded the audience that with U-Turn, Nikos Grammatikos left Thessaloniki with the Newcomer Filmmaker Award, consolidating his presence in Greek cinema. Akis Sakellariou reflected on their first encounter and the collaboration that followed in A Time to Kill. “After months of rehearsals, scorching heat and freezing cold, we called it a wrap in 1993,” he said, reminiscing about the role that earned him the Award for Best Actor.

“During the years that followed, Nikos Grammatikos created an entire cinematic universe through his films. In 2002 with The King, his work reached cult status, since younger generations embraced the film with an almost religious devotion. Seeing a generation younger than you own approaching your work this way is truly rare,” Orestis Andreadakis pointed out. Akis Sakellariou added that the same thing happened with Truants, a film particularly loved by younger audiences at the time, and still, as he said, a favorite among people in their thirties today.

“Nikos Grammatikos was the embodiment of an entire generation and a country, its undercurrents, its rock façade. He turned his story into that of each and everyone, renewing Greek cinema from the roots,” underscored the Festival’s Artistic Director, before a short video homage featuring defining excerpts from the director’s works, curated by Nikos Pastras, was screened.

When Nikos Grammatikos stepped onto the stage to accept the honorary Golden Alexander Award, the audience of the packed Olympion theater welcomed him with a warm round of applause. “There are times when words fail. This is a great honor for me. It is the most prestigious award I’ve ever been bestowed with. I’d like to thank Akis, Orestis, and Eleni Androutsopoulou, who was my guardian angel,” he said, overcome with emotion. “All I can say is thank you.”

“I had the fortune of working with people like Minas Hatzisavvas, Yioula Zoiopoulou, and Constantinos Staridas. The names I chose are incidental; it’s just that these people are gone, and the list of ‘truants’ is growing longer by the day. And because when I was younger, I used to be the one keeping the attendance sheet, I can now tell you I’ve run out of pages… Many close friends of mine have passed. I’d like to dedicate this award to them,” the director noted.

Orestis Andreadakis shed light on yet another symbolic moment of the evening: this year being Truants’ 30th anniversary of its first screening. Nikos Grammatikos recalled the warm reception his films enjoyed from audiences in Thessaloniki, as opposed to the somewhat tepid response from certain critics. “I remember in the screening of TheKing, the audience here in Thessaloniki had gone completely silent. My editor, Yannis Sakaridis called me and told me that in the theater you could hear a pin drop. People would approach me in the foyer, congratulating me and crying. The following day, most critics treated me like a sacrificial lamb. In fact, a major newspaper had even written for Truants at the time: ‘Just another film for his friends,’” he mentioned.

Nikos Grammatikos thanked the people of Thessaloniki warmly for the enduring support they showed to his works, and the relationship they built over the years. “The quiet murmur surrounding every single one of my films, from my first short to my latest one, began from this very city and spread like wildfire. Even today, strangers still stop me in the street to say thank me. I owe it to you,” he uttered.

“I’ve been coming to the Festival since 1983, together with Antonis Kokkinos and Giannis Karypidis, for the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation’s show, Third Program. In 1987, I presented my first short, Makrothen. At the time, I was sleeping in Panos Papadopoulos’s house, who would later on become the co-producer of Medea...Louder Than My Thoughts.” At this point, Nikos Grammatikos talked about collaborators of his, who were amidst the audience of Olympion: Nikos Panayotopoulos, “yet another person who is extremely important to my work, and one of the most important writers of his generation, without whom neither Truants, or The King would have existed,” as well as Panos Papahadzis, with whom he created his first feature film. He also made special mention to Kostis Gikas, Yioula Zoiopoulou, and Alexandra Sakellaropoulou, and then disclosed that he's working on a new film, along with Panos Papahadzis.

Shortly prior to the screening of Truants, which took place under universally accessible terms, with the support of Alpha Bank, Panos Papahadzis, Nikos Panayotopoulos, Kostis Gikas, Katerina Varthalitou, Tasos Nousias, Yorgos Evgenikos, Yorgos Yannopoulos, Aimilios Heilakis, Nikos Georgakis, Vangelis Mourikis, and Antonis Samaras, the film’s contributors, took to the stage to pay their own homage to the director who had shaped both their career and lives.

“Thank you for being here with us today. It’s a great honor for me to attend Nikos’s award ceremony, since we started out together and we’ll continue moving forward together. It’s a very heart-warming evening,” Panos Papahadzis noted. “I can only speak about joy. This moment is so incredibly special, that all we have to do is share it the way it is. This sentiment permeates the theater, and it’s wonderful,” Vangelis Mourikis added.

“Truants" is primarily about relationships. What truly came out of this film is what you see before you today: we all became friends. We shared things, and if there is anything good in the filmmaking and art scene, it’s all that is born from meaningful connections between people. Many years have passed since most of us last saw each other, but this moment feels like it hasn’t been a day,” Yorgos Evgenikos expressed.

Tasos Nousias commented: “Nikos’s contribution changed the course of Greek cinema. However, I mostly see this day as an opportunity to remember all those who are no longer with us.” He then shared another memory from when they first met in Thessaloniki in 1991 and went on to say: “This film became part of us, of our body. We became this friend group.” Yorgos Yannopoulos, in turn, stated: “Nikos is on my list of friends, even though I don’t see him that often. I thank him.”

Last but not least, Aimilios Heilakis, deeply moved, referred to his collaboration with Nikos Grammatikos: “You can see here some people who, back then, gathered together to create something we considered very important. When Kostis Gikas met us, he kept being left speechless, because we knew exactly what to do. We had rehearsed a million times. This kind of connection no longer exists, and that’s why I’m hardly involved in filmmaking anymore. Today, we’ve come here for Nikos, one of the most important figures in Greek literature and the arts. He was the director who always sat right next to the camera. For us, it was certainly not ‘just another film.’ We believed in Nikos Grammatikos and what you’re about to watch is the culmination of the work of a truly remarkable person.”