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Emanuela Karastoyanova

Today Zinos Panayotidis, director of the Rosebud talks about the cinema preferences of the Greeks, the situation of the seventh art in the country and of what it means to be a distributor of quality art films. It is exactly because of Rosebud that quality films from European festivals reach the Greek cinema screens, and later the souls of the Greek audience.
 
Do the Greeks love cinema?
 
Zinos Panayotidis: No. Greece occupies a very low position according to the statistics. Now we have to take into account also the fact that we are not 10 million, but 11 or 12 million. This means that annually there is one viewer per capita. Greece sells 12-13 million tickets annually, and this is very small ammount. Only the former socialist countries are ranked behind us. Respectively, we can not say that the Greek loves cinema very much. A bad feature of the Greek cinema market is that the ticket-movies ratio is disproportionate. Here come out distributed about 350 or 400 films a year. It really is a great figure, that means we have 7 new movies a week. Most of these movies are high quality and need criticism. The problem, however is that they all come out at the same time. Now for example on 30-September 11 films will be released, 7 of which need criticism. The viewer is influenced by critics to go and see them... But can we fine place in a newspaper for all 7 of them? This is an exaggeration. The Greek has always been extreme about everything. As once upon a time people were opening right next to each other video clubs, dvd-clubs or kiosks with suvlaki and then they were closing them, so it is now with the movies ...
 
 What are the preferences of the Greek today?
 
Zinos Panayotidis: fiction, blockbuster and some of the movies of famous directors, which we might call both quality and popular. These include for example the films of Almodovar, Fatih Akin, Michael Haneke. Here is very popular and loved also Woody Allen. We can play movies from Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona, which sold 350 thousand tickets to Scoop, which only had 25 thousand sold. But unlike America in Greece Woody Allen is famous. What is regrettable is that there are many other quality films, which can not even sell 1000 tickets. And some time ago the lowest figure for them amounted to 5000. Another thing to add is that the data relate mainly to Athens. In Thessaloniki, viewers are less and outside Thessaloniki they are even less. For example the film "White Ribbon" by Michael Haneke, which won the award for best European film at Cannes last year, registered in Greece great success. 70 thousand tickets were sold, but out of them nearly 60 thousand were sold in Athens. The remaining 7500 in Thessaloniki and around 2000-2500 in the other part of the country. Imagine what proportion we are talking about. Iannina, Patras, Iraklion, Komotini, Xanthi, Larissa, all of these cities have universities in them... If we have, however, a Greek comedy the situation is more optimistic. Sales are half-half. A film like this which goes well and sells about 300 thousand tickets usually sells half of them in Athens and the other half in the province. The situation with quality films is different. Thessaloniki and the rest of Greece are only involved with 5%. This is related to the culture of the province. There, people prefer to sit in cafes, to talk and to drink frappe. There are some romantic people left who attend exhibitions, film and theater halls, but they really are not many.
 
What does it mean to be a director of a company such as Rosebud in the times of crisis?
 
Zinos Panayotidis: Look, as a whole in our work there is a great deal of risk. Years ago we were watching this kind of films and if we liked them we simply bought them. Now this is not the case. Once the new film of a director is released, you go and buy it, even if it is expensive. Then it may turn out that the film has no success because it is not good. Only think of how many films of the filmmakers have turned out not to be good, but distributors have bought them, based solely on his name. Sometimes buying is based solely on the name of the director, actor, topic or even the on the script. It is difficult. Rosebud is a company that is 50% mine and 50% of the Odeon. Odeon is large, it has production, distribution, cinemas Kosmopolis, Starcity. Of course, we have an associate with whom we discuss, but the choice of films is mine.
 
Has it ever happened to you to take a movie that, contrary to all expectations later turns out to be failure?
 
Zinos Panayotidis: Yes, there have been such films and want to forget about them. As well of course as great successes. The best of commercial point of view movie in the history of the company was Asterix. The first and second parts we took on distribution basis, as the producer was a friend of ours. We took the film without investing a minimum guarantee and with a percentage. So if we were profiting they were also profiting. During the third Asterix came other producers who asked for an enormous amount as minimum garantee. The time had come to see the so-called first cut. I went to France and when I saw the movie I did not like it at all. I thought it was a disaster. But nevertheless the film had great success in Greece. And we made a great premiere. Gerard Depardieu, Adriana Sklenarikova and many others also came. This means that we also make mistakes... But there are films that do not even cover the distribution cost. Then we try to release them on dvd, and then we also sell them to the television. Let us return again to the question of the difficulty of being a director of such a company and say that he, the director, is a in constant stress. Because of the film, which he must find and book. Because if the film is good everyone is fighting for it. That's why I travel constantly. It remains, of course, the question to find cinema halls for it and to prepare well its promotion.
 
Speaking of travelling which is your favorite European capital?
 
Zinos Panayotidis: In addition to Istanbul, where I was born it is Paris. In terms of the film festivals I would say Berlin and Cannes. A practical capital, where you can see many good movies and a good film festival is Toronto. A talking about the small festivals, Locarno in Switzerland. But I like especially much Paris. I also import many French films. This is one city where I love to work, to watch movies, and even just to walk.
 
 What started your love for the cinema?
 
Zinos Panayotidis: My love for the cinema is since my childhood. Ever since the junior high school in Istanbul. As a student at the university I became a member of the association of foreign students and decided to join the movie club. The club was in a pretty miserable condition, and it was only screening movies once a week. In the beginning I was only an assistant and I was doing all kinds of work. Shortly after this, I undertook the functions of a person in charge. I was taking movies from the distributors and Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday we were showing them. So, as originally almost nobody attended the club later for the screenings started coming crowds of people. Filmmakers, film critics... Bakoyanopoulos, Rafailidis, Theodoros Angelopoulos and many others also came. This was the beginning of my love for cinema.
 
An interesting story from those years?
 
Zinos Panayotidis: One summer when I was a student between the first and second year I went to see a Japanese movie in Elektra cinema. Suddenly on the screen started to happen all kinds of messes. Killed people lived and stood up, there was a great mess. Spectators in the room started shouting  that they bought tickets, and what was happening here...! There was a confusion. People returned their tickets, and the screening was canceled for the next day. What had actually happened, however! Once the distributor came we discovered that an employee who may have wished to revenge had cut the film into 36 pieces ... They asked me to help cinema technician to fix the film. Then I was also offered a job.
 
Let's go back to the crisis. Statistics show that during the 2009-2010 season have been sold 1 million tickets less than in 2008-2009. Does this mean, that the crisis in the cinema is not so great size after all?
 
Zinos Panayotidis: Of course, that things are not so bad. But let me clarify that the fact that for the 2009-2010 season have been sold between 11 and 13 million tickets is in direct relation to films that were screened. Some films raise the number of tickets sold. Thus for example, Avatar sold nearly 1 million tickets. For the level of crisis we can not judge only by the quantity tickets sold. Overall I believe that cinema is cheap entertainment. You can see what are the prices of drinks in pubs for example. Cinema ticket is worth about a drink. I think however, that the cinema will be one of the last things that the crisis will affect.
 
That sounds pretty optimistic ...
 
Zinos Panayotidis: Yes, it does. However cinema is struggling with other problems as well. With downloading movies over the Internet for example. Greece is among the countries with the most piracy. Did you know that when the film Inception came out in theaters, several days after that Africans were already offering it on the street for 5 euros. And man thinks to himself: why to pay 8 euros for the cinema? It’s better to buy the movie for 5 euros and invite friends at home to watch it together.
 
What is your opinion of Greek cinema today?
 
Currently our level is low. See for example the Turkish cinema, it is always at the festivals. But I believe that young people will bring a change. It is a pity, however, that the state does not help us. For many years we’ve been expecting an important law to be adopted. 20 years ago a contract was signed for the television channels to provide 1 percent of their income for the production of Greek films. For 20 years now not a single channel except for ERT and NOVA has given anything. There wasn’t also a Minister to tell them: "Pay!"

Another problem are the directors. Currently there are no directors who make good films. Now, when Greece passes through an economic crisis, I think that both in terms of topics and in terms of creativity things will grow better. I think the crisis will help. Filmmakers will have a reason to take a look at many pictures from the everyday life. And when one is slightly squeezed economically, the heart and mind begin to work more. You start to think in a different way, more logically. This is why some countries, which are less advanced than Greece have many good filmmakers and movies which are simply artwork.

I do not know how long the crisis will continue, but I believe that for some people it will be useful. First of all for all the newly rich people, who have been pressuring us. They are guilty for this whole terrible situation in the spiritual life of Greece. I wish that the crisis will hit precisely them, those who earned their money illegally and who spent them also illegally. This is the main core of the problem. Many artists and people on television were attracted by this kind of money. I hope, however that Greece turns out to be wiser than the crisis.