
Michalis Giannatos (Greek: Μιχάλης Γιαννάτος; 11 July 1941 – 17 September 2013), alternatively spelled as Michael Yannatos, was a Greek actοr. Ηe was born in (Istanbul), Turkey. He left the city for Greece in 1964 during the long expulsion of Istanbul Greeks. He studied in Konstantinos Demopoulos' school of drama and first appeared as a professional actor in Georgios Zervoulakos' film Oi stigmatismenoi (Greek: Οι στιγματισμένοι) in 1966. When still a student, he participated in the theatrical play Capetan Michalis (Greek: Καπετάν Μιχάλης) next to Manos Katrakis. During his long cinematic career, he appeared in close to 100 films, television series and plays. He was a regular in Theodoros Angelopoulos films since he was one of the director's favorite actors. After Megalexandros (Greek: Μεγαλέξανδρος) in 1981, Angelopoulos was always calling him to play in his movies. He was fluent in five languages; Greek, Turkish, French, Italian and Spanish. Due to that, he appeared in many international productions, including Midnight Express, Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Munich and more.

Arbitrary! Two families who coincidentally have the same name and live in the same apartment building. One is headed by a failed lawyer, Andreas Hatzigiorgis, who is supported by his wealthy wife, while the other is headed by a restaurateur who harasses his employees, Kostas Hatzigiorgis. The two families are often at odds as one wants to destroy the other, creating unspeakable situations....

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The main character of the series is a female teacher who, during the interwar period, leaves her hometown, Paris, to come to Greece, her place of origin. The political and social situation prevailing in Greece surprises her and her emotions alternate, as she encounters various behaviors and mentalities. Her appointment in Rethymno becomes an occasion for her to get to know the conservatism of the province and to risk her career and her reputation. In the first episode of the series, Katerina Mak...

Petros and Orestis are twin brothers. Orestis was put up for adoption when he was just a baby and was raised by rich parents. One day, Petros witnesses an accident which involves Orestis. Realizing they are identical and taking advantage of the fact that Orestis suffers from amnesia, Petros steals Orestis's life....

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Journalist Costas Tsarouchas reveals the recipient of the stolen goods from the great theft of the Esterházy collection from the "Museum of Fine Arts" in Budapest, in November 1983, as revealed by evidence from the investigations he conducted....

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When a fisherman leaves to fight with the Greek army during World War II, his fiancée falls in love with the local Italian commander....

Eurydice is a singer in a group that plays in country fairs. The group is not successful and Eurydice gets convinced by a rich farmer to follow him to Athens, where he promises her that he will make her a famous singer. Things do not turn out as promised, and Eurydice returns to the band, which is very successful now, due to Orpheus, a mute clarinet player, who has joined them. The farmer comes to reclaim her by force and Eurydice gets killed in a car accident. Orpheus tries to give her life wit...

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In this adolescent-oriented drama, a young woman is forced to attend a posh finishing school in the Mediterranean. She vents her anger by rebelling against the cruel and sicko headmaster. When she discovers that he has been secretly photographing them naked and profiting from the pictures, she rallies the other girls and gets revenge....

During the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, eleven Israeli athletes are taken hostage and murdered by a Palestinian terrorist group known as Black September. In retaliation, the Israeli government recruits a group of Mossad agents to track down and execute those responsible for the attack....

An extreme passion that overturns the balance and changes the life course of a woman. Anna is a successful journalist with impeccable image and perfectly organized life. However, it has reached a borderline where nothing fills it anymore. One night, during a reportage, he will accidentally encounter a strange, mysterious and dangerous stranger, who goes through transit from Greece. Between them a relationship will be exciting, but also nightmarish ......

A reporter notices an old man in a border town who may be an important Greek politician who disappeared mysteriously years ago....

Two Greek children embark on a journey to search for their father, who supposedly lives in Germany....

"A Touch of Spice" is a story about Fanis, a young Greek boy growing up in Istanbul, whose grandfather, a culinary philosopher and mentor, teaches him that both food and life require a little salt to give them flavor. They both require... A Touch of Spice. Fanis grows up to become an excellent cook and uses his cooking skills to spice up the lives of those around him. 35 years later he leaves Athens and travels back to his birthplace of Istanbul to reunite with his grandfather and his first love...

A brutal father, shaped by the right-wing deep state, forces his two sons and daughter into deadly ambushes to rob passing cars. Bound by an incestuous relationship with his daughter, he dominates the family, driving one son to seek escape while the other, disabled, struggles to emulate him....

Dimitris Lembessis gets out of prison, pays his friend Stratos a visit and kills him. With Ilias he organizes a big jewel heist. During the operation they discover that someone has ratted on them. In their attempt to escape, a police officer is killed and Ilias is mortally wounded......

Escaping the dreary wet weather of 1930s England, an eccentric family uproot and ship themselves to the sunnier climes of the Greek island of Corfu....

1900, Kastoria, Western Macedonia. Greeks, Turks, Jews, and other nationalities live together under the Ottoman Empire, amid the despair, instability, and confusion brought about by the Greco-Turkish War of 1897. Under these circumstances, a family of fishermen on Lake Kastoria, a fisherman, his wife, his grandfather, and their five children try to make a living. The daughter works in the fur trade, the younger son attends Greek school, while the older son, Christos, helps his father with the fi...

The first part of an incomplete trilogy telling the story of the greek people. The film begins in 1919, with Greek immigrants from Odessa arriving near Thessaloniki. Led by the charismatic Spyros, they establish a new settlement in the delta of a river. The youngest of the settlers are Spyros' son Alexis and an orphan from Odessa, Eleni. A strong, almost incestuous affection develops between the teenagers, resulting in twins who are given to a foster family. Also standing in the way of love is S...

This tale takes place in a bar. The Spanish Alonso and his blind mother run this place. Bay, who is Alonso's friend live here too. This story tells something about Alonso and Bay and the "American Dream"....

Alexander, a tribal warlord and former political prisoner, kidnaps British tourists, holding them for ransom until Britain and the Greek puppet government in Athens meet his demand for amnesty for his band of freedom fighters....

Following the wedding of his daughter, stone-faced beekeeper Spyros makes an annual journey from the north of Greece to the south, traveling along with his hives. En route, he meets an erratic, young female drifter, with whom he strikes up an unusual, self-destructive relationship....

A wild tale of mistaken identity set during the Nazi occupation of Greece and starring the great Thanasis Vengos. Thanasis is called upon, during the Occupation, to testify at the trial of a tavern owner accused of serving cat meat to his customers. He too is accused of perjury and imprisoned with some resistance fighters. The resistance fighters escape, but Thanasis remains in his cell. He is accused of being Ivan, the notorious ringleader of certain revolutionaries....

Mystery writer Sian Anderson leaves her boyfriend John for three weeks of intense writing in the isolated Greek town of Monemvassia. Upon her arrival in the ancient, deserted, walled-in fortress, she is met by Elias Appleby, the round eccentric landlord who guides her through mysterious underground passageways to the house where she will work. He warns her to stay inside at night because of the killer winds that arrive after dark....

Zissos and Apostolos are two Greeks living in a city in the Ottoman East in the early 20th century. A load of pounds will throw them into wandering and adventure, and from there into their physical and mental impasse. The khan is the halfway point of the journey, in the middle of the adventure....

The classic comedy, Alekos Sakellarios, Christos Giannakopoulos, "Ilias the 16th", which was performed in the summer of 2002 at the theater "Minoa" entitled "Markos ... Elias of the 16th". During a robbery, the little sculptor Elias makes the tsiliador disguised as a policeman. But then he is forced, once in a while, to investigate a robbery himself ......

Crete 1897. Greek rebels gained their freedom by fighting in the mountains. An allied fleet of French, English, Italian and Russian warships anchored in the port of Chania in protecting Greek and Turkish inhabitants. Rosa Bonaparte, accompanied by twelve girls off at a deserted beach with all the equipment of a Marseille brothel. Installed in a wing of a huge, ruined former Town Hall, where the officers of the allied fleet meet and entertain in the evenings surrounded by undercover agents, milit...

A breadwinner, Thanasis Trampas, decides to open a shop renting motorbikes. When the local bikers begin to bother him, he turns into a kamikaze to deal with them....

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The adventures of a photographer, who undertook to take a photographs of exiled dictator from South America and eventually found chased without knowing why....

In this color comedy Thanasis trying for years to leave illegally for America to make his life because due to financial can not pay fares, but always something was wrong and left behind. His friend, Nikiforos, advises him to stay in Greece, to work and to look to find the namesake of Thanasis, who helps around the world....

An old communist returning to Greece after 32 years in the Soviet Union is disillusioned with the state of things....

The movie is about dictatorships in Greece – first, the Metaxas regime (1936-1940), and then the Colonels’ Junta (1967-74). In Part One, the Metaxas regime is depicted as a circus, where Thanasis (Thanasis Vengos) is a clown trying to conceal a young colleague’s subversive action. In Part Two, we see Thanasis suffer because of his honesty and kindness, in a country where the system’s irrationality is clearly evident....

The film presents seven short stories of everyday madness: parking in Athens. Thanasis, the soccer referee. Thanasis, the projectionist at a porn theater. Thanasis, the extra in a pasta commercial. Thanasis, the hospital director. Thanasis, the undertaker. Thanasis, the sailor who suspects his wife is cheating on him....

An immigrant in Germany works hard to support his father and sister, who live in Greece. When he is forced to return home, he discovers that he has no money because the bank where he kept his savings has gone bankrupt. So he returns hidden in a refrigerated truck and arrives frozen, which starts a battle between refrigerator advertisers over who will convince him to advertise their refrigerators....

Thanasis Zevedaios (Thanasis Vengos) has a shop with watches and running but not enough! Time and the clocks have become obsessed after running nonstop in an effort to nourish their relatives. The 'philosopher' brother dies and leaves another four mouths under his protection. The day is divided between the shop, his sister and his niece to marry, and his beloved, who works in a supermarket, while the economic situation and their obligations do not allow them to marry....

Tore Andersson is a depressed 43 year old sport journalist living in Stockholm. His girlfriend has left him so he decides to take a vacation in Cyprus....

Based on the book by Ilias Venezis "The Number 31328", the film by Nikos Koundouros unfolds through the personal tragedies of three characters, the Asia Minor Disaster and the agonizing travails of the Asia Minor Greeks who had been arrested and led to death by Kemal's troops and armed groups of Muslims. The wife of a merchant, a teacher and a seventeen-year old boy try to survive, following the column of prisoners into the depths of Asia Minor....

Famous writer Alexander contracts a terminal illness. He receives a letter from his wife describing a summer day 30 years ago, and leaves his seaside home to remember his past. This journey will allow him to wander between the past and the present, and encounter unexpected people, allowing him to collect unforgettable memories in the final moments of his life....

Rena’s father insists on marrying her off to the son of a shipowner. Rena, however, doesn’t even want to hear about it, so she runs away and disguises herself as a boy named Pipis. As such, she meets a poor fisherman, Lefteris, and helps him on his way to Ioannina....

Anthology film with a number of sketches that satirize modern Greece....

A widow reminisces on her life after returning to her family home in Greece....

An exiled filmmaker finally returns to his home country where former mysteries and afflictions of his early life come back to haunt him once more....

On 29 January 1993 eighty prisoners escaped from an Athens prison. Well, in actual fact one convict escaped, a guy named Vassilis, for his beloved in Amalliada, but in his hurry he forgot the prison door open and little by little another seventy-nine got out... The film follows the eleven who made it down to the Peloponnese... with them an old musician who has a map he bought from a Greek in America for $2500 with the lost treasure of General Hursit Pasha....

Billy Hayes is caught attempting to smuggle drugs out of Turkey. The Turkish courts decide to make an example of him, sentencing him to more than 30 years in prison. Hayes has two opportunities for release: the appeals made by his lawyer, his family, and the American government, or the "Midnight Express"....

Makis , a man with difficulties in the stock market, falls for Roula , who is the mistress of a big tycoon , which Makis has invested in. Makis becomes witness to an assassination gone wrong. The police are after him thinking he is the shooter but the real assassin is after Makis to recruit him to his terrorist beliefs. The only comfort Makis can find is Roula who follows him on his deadly adventure....

Elias of the 16th Precinct follows three friends – Elias, Thomas and Vangelis – who face considerable financial hurdles with their debts rivalling the size of Everest. They decide the only solution is to snatch money from Vangelis’ boss, Labros ; a cafeteria owner, pawnbroker and fence. While Thomas will attempt the breaking and entering, Elias will be disguised as a police officer – for security reasons, of course. Hilarity ensues as this comedy of errors sends their plan spiralling off in a to...

A Naive man from the countryside, affected by the famous Italian cine star Lado Bouzanka and his ladiesman ways, travels to Athens in order to act in a similar way with women, after having sold all his land and ready to spend a lot. He stays with his cousin, a crazy deluded artist and his sexy models. His many attempts with every single girl he meets, are being interrupted by several incidents....

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Stathis loves bikes, Rena wants to dance all the time and Aleksis goes crazy for rock music. They are three crazy siblings. One of them, Stathis, doesn't seem capable to keep a job and when he loses his girlfriend, his mother decides to give him what he loves the most, a motorcycle!...

Babis (Nikos Rizos), after his release, finds it difficult to balance between the groups with the guys and jobber of Piraeus, and the strict surveillance of the police, who closed the once in prison. He will try to sell the alleged Byzantine icons that makes a fellow prisoner, but will be arrested. It will be released as there were images of value, and will be informed that the mother of the same (Mary Metaxa) alerted the police to remove him from the unlawful activity....

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A man sees a poster of an old movie that he claims to have acted in...

Tamtakos has a goat, Sardanafalos, and exploits its reproduction with the goats of the area. However, he falls into the trap of the tax authorities, who cannot classify the goat's "leap" in the VAT category. When the ministry's economic committee decides on a 6% VAT rate in order to support livestock farming, it is too late for Tamtakos, as the goat has already been slaughtered by Lefteris, the husband of an offended villager....

A group of minors escape from a reformatory and lock themselves in a museum on an island, threatening to destroy the statues if their demands are not met....

Dimitris Apostolou is a successful lawyer and former minister. He lives peacefully with his wife and daughter, leading an uneventful family life. Tassos, a dear friend of his, tries to convince him to make his life a little more fun by escaping from the daily grind, but he is not convinced. Dimitris meets Aliki, a journalist by profession, who becomes his lover but also writes his biography. However, someone from his past comes to disturb his peace......

A Christian boy and a Muslim girl fall in a forbidden love in the town of Komotini. They decide to escape together, but the Turkish consul has another opinion....

An archaelogist falls under the spell of a statue with a curse on it....

Thanasis lives in today's conditions, where Greece is a madhouse. A police sergeant after many years of impeccable service, he anxiously awaits his long-awaited promotion. At the new police station where he has been assigned, somewhere in the center of Athens, he faces incidents of daily madness, lawlessness, and corruption, while also dealing with his own personal anxieties about his unfortunate family, especially his son, who is an anarchist. There is no shortage of conflict between them, as e...

Manolis finishes his military service and stays in the capital, at his uncle's house (Kostas Kazakos). He finds a job and tries to build a life for himself. However, he gets mixed up with dangerous people and gets a close-up view of the world of drugs and marginalization....

A doc made during the nightmarish filming of The Suspended Step of the Stork at Florina....

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A modern day treasure hunt for a mystical relic that turns into a love story for all time....

A seaman finds himself out of work and stranded in a distant port. He shares a cheap room. They take turns sleeping, some in the morning, some at night. Grief! When he will go back to sea? And there! The scent of woman drifts up to seduce him! He realizes he had shared his bed with a lady of the night....

An astronaut's widow and her young son meet a stranger from the future on a Greek island....

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Shadow puppetry is not only part of the heritage of East Asia; Greece had its own traditional form of this popular art. In this leisurely drama, set in 1950s Athens, Antonis Barkis (Kostas Kasakos) is the master puppeteer for a traditional shadow show. However, although he is still making a living, it is clear that other forms of popular entertainment will soon supplant this one. This does not improve Antonis' temper, and his assistant's desires to modernize their entertainments only make it wor...