Your attention needed > April 7, 2008
Posted by grhomeboy in Editorial.Tags: Cyprus, Editorial, Greece, grhomeboy, homeboy, Homeboy Media News
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> As we have already announced, this blog has moved to its own domain name.
At our NEW blog you can still read all the latest news from Greece and Cyprus, just like we used to do it here, for the last two years.
Please update your bookmars and favorites to our new internet address which is >
Thank you for your attention.
UPDATE >>>
Please note that, at our pace, we are moving posts to our Homeboy Media Network blogs, http://www.homeboynet.com, and as a result, to avoid duplication, any moved posts are immediately deleted.
For your ease please find them at our blogs >
Thank you for your attention.
Read us at our own brand NEW blog April 6, 2008
Posted by grhomeboy in Editorial.Tags: Cyprus, Editorial, Greece, grhomeboy, homeboy, Homeboy Media News
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As previously announced, this blog, Homeboy Media News [grhomeboy.wordpress.com], has moved to its own domain name and therefore no updates will be posted here.
On the contrary, all latest news from Greece and Cyprus, are being posted in our brand NEW blog and you can read and catch-up with all the latest at this internet address >
Please update your bookmarks and visit us at our NEW domain name > http://www.homeboy.gr
We look forward to welcoming you there!
Agnes Baltsa reunites with Stavros Xarchakos April 1, 2008
Posted by grhomeboy in Music Life Greek.Tags: Agnes Baltsa, Athens, Athens Concert Hall, Greece, Music
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Internationally renowned Agnes Baltsa is scheduled to interpret Greek songs at the Athens Concert Hall on Thursday.
“Songs of My Country” will be revived at the Athens Concert Hall this week, under the tutelage of the internationally acclaimed mezzo-soprano Agnes Baltsa along with prominent composer Stavros Xarchakos.
The concert, which is scheduled to take place on Thursday, is the outcome of a long-term collaboration between the two artists, essentially a production of songs by Manos Hadjidakis, Mikis Theodorakis, Xarchakos and Vassilis Tsitsanis, featuring Baltsa, accompanied by the State Orchestra of Hellenic Music. The concert also serves as a trailer for a revamped re-edition of a first recording on the project, initially recorded by Deutsche Grammophon back in 1986.
During a press conference in Athens last week, Baltsa talked about the difficulties which arise when it comes to interpreting songs which have been described as the “gospel” of a nation. “I sing with great fear and respect, with a sense of responsiblity as much as joy,” noted the mezzo-soprano.
Proceeds from Thursday evening’s event at the Megaron will go to the Agapi Charity Organization.
Athens Concert Hall, 1 Kokkali Street and Vasilissis Sofias Avenue, Athens, tel 210 7282333.
Exploring gender issues at Bios April 1, 2008
Posted by grhomeboy in Arts Events Greece, Arts Exhibitions Greece.Tags: Arts, Athens, Culture, Events, Exhibitions, Greece
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An intriguing festival organized by the Goethe institutes of Southeastern Europe comes to Athens > Berliner Joy Gutthardt’s performances explore stereotypes of the female gender. The artist is one of many German performers who will be coming to Athens for the Genderpop festival this week.
An unusual festival featuring cinema, performance art, video installations, live music shows and contemporary dance kicked off at downtown Bios yesterday. What brings all the different artistic genres together? A look at the role of the sexes and people’s identity.
The series of events comes as an initiative of the Goethe Institutes based in Southeastern Europe, the cultural centers are currently approaching the issue of gender, participating in a contemporary and global discussion on the socially predetermined, fabricated and stereotyped roles of the sexes.
Many are already acquainted with so-called gender studies, in the last few decades alone, they have made their presence increasingly felt in university programs around the world. Perhaps those familiar with these developments on the academic front will have a clearer picture of what lies ahead at Bios this week.
They may have also heard of Judith Butler, the American writer and professor at California’s Berkeley, author of “Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity.” Published in 1990, the book examined the notion of sex as a role. A feminist, Butler put forward the idea that a person’s sex identity has to do with specific moments and actions, she called it gender performativity. Difficult ideas to deal with back then, and not much has changed.
Don’t worry about the academic aspect however when it comes to the Bios events this week. The festival kicked off with a screening of Athanasios Karanikolas’s “S” and continues with short films shot by Jan Kruger between 2000 and 2007, along with a collection of films by Ula Stokl and Edgar Reitz from 1970.
Besides cinema, Genderpop, the three-day program starts in the Bios foyer on Friday, featuring art and music videos, performances, concerts and DJ sets. Among the guests is Berliner Joy Gutthardt, an actress whose performances explore the stereotypes of the female gender, Berlin singer Namosh, as well as female trio Rhythm King & Her Friends. All in all an intriguing group of artists taking over the downtown space this week.
Bios Venue, 84 Pireos Street, Athens.
Related Links > www.goethe/de/athen
Greece may allow same-sex marriages March 31, 2008
Posted by grhomeboy in Gay Life, Greece News.Tags: Church of Greece, Gay Life, Greece, News, Politics, Religion & Faith
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Greek authorities are considering adopting a law that would allow same-sex couples to marry in a civil ceremony, the country’s NET TV said on Monday.
The Greek Justice Ministry pledged to establish a working group on the rights of gay couples living together, which would “analyze all aspects of the issue, international practice and the existing domestic legal and social framework.”
The move follows a request by the country’s National Commission for Human Rights that proposed a civil union registry that would allow both same-sex couples to marry. Parliament could approve the law in a few months, national media said.
The current 1982 marriage law does not specify the gender of the groom and the bride. However, civil authorities refuse to marry same-sex couples. They say the move could result in a number of further legal difficulties, including the issue of adoption by gay couples.
The Greek Orthodox Church, which strongly opposes same-sex marriages, called the possibility a “catastrophic bomb” and “a prostitution” which threatened Greek society.
Modern Greece is a largely conservative society, strongly influenced by the dominant church. Civil marriages became legal just 15 years ago, while most Greeks still prefer a traditional Greek Orthodox wedding ceremony. The first Gay Pride parade in Greece was held in 2005.
Film Director Jules Dassin dies March 31, 2008
Posted by grhomeboy in Movies Life, Movies Life Greek.Tags: Cinema, Films, Greece, Melina Mercouri, Movies, News
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Hospital officials say American film director Jules Dassin has died in Athens at age 96. Dassin made more than 20 films, including “Topkapi” and “Never On Sunday.” He died Monday, hospital officials said. He married famous Greek actress-politician Melina Mercouri and settled in Athens.
Veteran US moviemaker Jules Dassin, who died Monday in Athens at the age of 96, was a film noir master who sought exile in Europe after being named during the anti-communist witch-hunts of the 1950s. Dassin married the legendary Greek actress Melina Mercouri, joined her campaign for the return of Greece’s stolen Parthenon Marbles and was eventually awarded honorary Greek citizenship.
Born in Middletown, Connecticut in 1911, Dassin earned a reputation as an innovative director and was one of America’s hottest young filmmakers of the 1940s with films such as “Brute Force” (1947) and “Naked City” (1948). But as an active Communist who never compromised on his beliefs, he was blacklisted at the height of the witch-hunts on leftists unleashed by Senator Joseph McCarthy.
In 1949 Dassin quit the US for Europe, arriving first in London, where he filmed “Night in the City” (1950) starring US actor Richard Widmark and now considered a landmark of the film noir genre. Moving on to France, he produced “Rififi” (“Du rififi chez les hommes,” 1955), based on a novel by Auguste le Breton, and best remembered for a now-legendary heist scene. The 32-minute sequence played without dialogue or music, and the safe-cracking scene was so detailed that Paris police are rumoured to have briefly banned the movie for fear it be too instructive to would-be criminals.
Dassin’s first movie in Greece was “He Who Must Die” (“Celui Qui Doit Mourir” 1957), based on “Christ Recrucified” by the renowned Greek novelist Nikos Kazantzakis. But he would soon have cause to return to the country for good. In 1960, Dassin made “Never on Sunday” a story about an American in Greece trying to save a kind-hearted prostitute. The film won an Oscar for Best Song for composer Manos Hadjidakis, and is considered one of the finest movies ever made in Greece. Dassin himself was nominated for Best Director and Best Script, although in the end he never won an Oscar. More importantly for Dassin however, the film starred Melina Mercouri, one of Greece’s most adored actresses.
Two years after another of his landmark films, another heist movie “Topkapi” (1964), which won Peter Ustinov an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, Dassin married Mercouri, who also starred in the film.
Merkouri and Dassin never hid their radical politics. Both were active in helping organise Greek resistance among expatriate politicians and artists in Paris against the right-wing junta that ruled Greece between 1967 and 1974. After Mercouri retired from film-making she entered politics, rising to become Greece’s Culture Minister in the 1980s. She made the return of the Parthenon Marbles, taken from Greece in the 19th century and now in the British Museum, a lifelong quest.
Dassin joined her campaign and eventually headed the Melina Mercouri Foundation bearing her name established to secure the marbles’ restitution to Greece. Mercouri died in 1994. Three years later, the Greek state awarded Dassin honourary citizenship for his efforts in their joint campaign.
In 1978, the Cannes Film Festival awarded him a Golden Palm for “A Dream of Passion,” one of his last films. In later years, Dassin retained an interest in politics despite advanced age and failing health. He had two children from his first marriage to violinist Beatrice Launer: Julie and Joe Dassin, a popular singer in 1970s France who died from a heart attack in 1980.
Athens holds its ground in name dispute March 31, 2008
Posted by grhomeboy in Greece News, Politics.Tags: European Union, Greece, Greek Heritage, Greek History, Greek Macedonia, NATO, News, Politics
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Greece and FYROM still at odds as US ups pressure before NATO summit
The Greek government yesterday insisted that it would not be pushed into accepting a compromise on the Macedonia name dispute before Wednesday’s NATO summit, as Western pressure for an immediate solution intensified.
«No solution means no invitation for Skopje to join NATO» Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis told Parliament on Saturday, stressing «only a mutually acceptable solution… can form the basis for constructive relations within the alliance.»
Meanwhile US officials cranked up the pressure on Athens to agree to a settlement so that the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) can join NATO. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice telephoned Greece’s Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis on Friday night to stress Washington’s resolve. And, sources said, US President George W. Bush is considering inviting Karamanlis and FYROM’s Premier Nikola Gruevski for talks on the matter before the NATO summit gets under way.
Bakoyannis has stuck to her guns, dismissing Rice’s description of the name spat as «something that has to do with antiquity» and stressing, in an interview published in yesterday’s Ethnos, that «we are not a country that takes orders from anyone.» Bakoyannis added that «the pressure of time will not lead us to accept proposals in the form of an ultimatum.»
The Greek FM said she believed United Nations mediator Matthew Nimetz might make a fresh proposal before Wednesday but said, «It will be difficult to reach a solution before the summit.»
But her FYROM counterpart Antonio Milososki said he thought a deal could be struck by then. «We are running out of time but I think the possibility (of an agreement) still exists,» he told reporters on the sidelines of a European Union summit in Slovenia on Saturday. He said FYROM’s parliament will today discuss Nimetz’s latest proposal for a solution to the name dispute – Republic of Macedonia (Skopje) – which is said to have appealed to FYROM.
Milososki and Bakoyannis had been due to hold talks in Slovenia at the weekend but the Greek side canceled the meeting after US pressure intensified.
Most European Foreign Ministers at the Slovenia summit avoided taking a stance on the FYROM accession issue. But Germany’s Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned of the regional repercussions of blocking Skopje’s bid to join NATO. «This summit does not have the right to fail and must not replace more stability for less stability,» he said.
In the meantime Greece has strongly condemned the appearance of offensive billboards featuring the Greek Flag in Skopje. Greece handed over a protest note to FYROM, requesting an immediate removal of a billboard in Skopje showing a Nazi swastika attached to Greek flag.
Greece’s Ambassador to Skopje, Alexandra Papadopoulou, has been instructed, within the day, to make a strong demarche to the Foreign Ministry of FYROM, requesting the immediate removal of the offensive billboard.
“This unacceptable poster, which was circulated via a private initiative and raised on Skopje’s streets, directly insults our country’s National Symbol and our struggle against fascism and Nazism,” Greek Foreign Ministry spokesman Koumoutsakos said.
“This incident demonstrates the huge mistake made by those who invest in nationalism and bigotry. It also confirms, once again, the correctness of Greece’s position that a necessary condition for the establishment of relations of solidarity and allied relations is, in practice, respect of good-neighborly relations between countries and peoples,” he added.
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