The 2022 Greek Film Festival returns to Leichhardt’s Palace Norton Street Cinema in October to celebrate the best of contemporary and classic Greek cinema.

Thirteen narrative features, three documentaries, and the Student Film Festival make up a diverse festival line-up designed to transport audiences Athens (Monday), explore generational history (Smyrna), and highlight ambitious, local art (The Greek Bar Jacket).

This year’s festival is dedicated to the 100th Anniversary of the Asia Minor Catastrophe, an event described as ‘changing the face of modern Greece’.

The festival will open on Thursday, October 13 with Eftihia, a film inspired by the life of lyricist Eftyhia Papagiannopoulou. Directed by Angelos Frantzis and starring Kariofilia Karabeti , Katia Goulioni , Pigmalion Dadakaridis, Thanos Tokakis, and Dina Michailidou, the film celebrates the timeless popular songs of Eftyhia set to music by Tsitsanis, Kaldaras, Ηiotis, and Hadjidakis.

Closing the festival on Sunday, October 23 is Gregoris Karantinakis’ Smyrna, which follows Filio, an elderly Greek American woman whose family diary recounts a turbulent history shaped by international developments while bringing past and present together.