FELLOWS

Gina Pavlopoulou

2018/19 Athens

Gina was born and raised in Athens where she studied Filmmaking and Producing at The American College of Greece. After working in production for television advertising, she then focused on film production. She is a co-founder of Newt Productions, an independent production company that aims to support and promote upcoming artists and creative ideas.

As a teamwork enthusiast, Gina now combines knowledge that she has gained as a competitive gamer and film production manager to work in the sociocultural field. As a result of her START Fellowship in Germany in 2018, she aims to create cultural change for the intergenerational community of Athens by revitalizing abandoned movie theaters.She will work to reopen an old movie theater and turn it into a meeting point for the public with multiple activities that will support the independent Greek film industry and distribution.

For any further updates feel free to drop by! http://newtproductions.gr/

Project Title

Back to the Cinema

Document and revitalize abandoned movie theaters for the intergenerational community to share experiences and memories.

“Back to the Cinema” is an initiative which aims to document the empty movie theaters of Athens so to collect all the cultural history before they disappear. From 1910, movie theaters started opening in Athens moving from mobile cinema to theaters. What kind of buildings were chosen to host a movie theater? Who were these people bringing pictures in Greece? What was for the Athenians cinema as a mean of entertainment and what audience did it attract? How was that mean changing in time of wars and every phase that the country went through? When and why did they close?

For a closer look to the architectural, folklore, artistic and social side of the movie theaters the owners, neighbors, architects and the cinema lovers of these generations will be approached to narrate the story of the theaters. The stories and each cinema theater will be documented through photography, recorded and filmed so to keep them alive before they turn into a supermarket or another working space like many of them have already become. Some of these movie theaters will be opened to exhibit a photo exhibition, a documentary and a printed book of all the information that is collected.

The goal is to transfer from the older to the younger generation stories of a lost history of a cinema experience that still remains a cultural basis of entertainment. Also, distribution companies, film actors, cinema lovers and government services will be interviewed.

Host Institution

bi'bak

bi’bak („Have a look!“ in Turkish)

bi’bak e.V. is a non-profit association for contemporary art and community-based projects and runs an independent project space in Berlin-Wedding.

bi’bak engages with a variety of sociopolitical issues such as migration, discourses on mobility, the construction of identities, consumerism, labor questions, and cultural memory. Interdisciplinary projects offer alternative perspectives and initiate new discourses on pressing debates that all too often seem unsolvable and intransigent.