NEW YORK – The 2018 Greek Film Expo, the new film festival presented by the Hellenic Film Society USA, concluded after sold-out screenings at the Directors Guild Theater in Manhattan, the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens, and the Bow Tie Manhasset Theater in Nassau County on May 3. Following a week of screenings of award-winning Greek comedies and dramas, The Hellenic Film Society announced the first-ever Greek film awards presented in New York.

The 2018 Alexis Mouyiaris Memorial Award for Best Performance in a Feature Film went to Katia Goulioni (Polyxeni). Goulioni is also the recipient of the 2018 Hellenic Film Academy Award for Best Actress for her role. Jamaica, directed by Andreas Morfonios, won the 2018 Greek Film Expo Audience Award for most popular film in the Expo.

The awards will be presented on Thursday, May 10 at a reception supporting Greeks in the Arts, celebrating the Greek Film Expo and the upcoming Carnegie Hall performance of legendary Greek singer Maria Farantouri.

For further information and tickets for the event at Kellari Taverna in Midtown Manhattan, visit eventbrite.com.

Many of the actors and filmmakers whose films were presented at the Greek Film Expo flew in from Greece to attend screenings, participate in audience Q&A sessions, and take photographs with their fans. Actors Spiros Papadopoulos and Nikoleta Kotsailidou (Jamaica), directors Dora Masklavanou (Polyxeni), Vasilis Christofilakis (Too Much Info Clouding Over my My Head), Alex Sipsidis (Blue Queen), and producer George Stephanopoulos (Swing Away) appeared in person at screenings and at the special premiere reception. The award-winning film, Worlds Apart, was also screened during the expo.

The Hellenic Film Society USA is a non-profit organization created to promote Greek cinema in America. Its mission is to share the richness of Greek films with a wider American audience, to promote Greek filmmakers, and to preserve the film heritage of Greece. The organization, founded by Jimmy DeMetro and the team that presented the New York City Greek Film Festival for 11 years, was established to expand the reach of Greek film beyond a single annual festival. In addition to presenting screenings of new and classic Greek films throughout the year in cities across the US, the organization is embarking on programs to support aspiring filmmakers of Greek descent; foster relationships between Greek filmmakers and US investors and distributors; and restore and preserve Greek film classics.

“We are passionate about our mission to present and support high-quality, well-crafted films and we’re looking forward to presenting our loyal audiences with engaging films at the Greek Film Expo,” says President Jimmy DeMetro. “Film has a very a special way of revealing culture, so we don’t just project Greek films, we project Greece. What we do brings Greece closer to all of us.”

The Hellenic Film Society USA, a 501(c)(3) organization, receives funding from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation and Nikos and Carol Mouyiaris, in memory of their son Alexis Mouyiaris. The Greek Film Expo in New York is made possible with generous support from the Onassis Foundation USA. For further information, please visit hellenicfilmusa.org or email info@hellenicfilmusa.org.</s>The Greek counter-terrorism unit has arrested 14 people – 13 Greeks and one foreign national – on charges of funding a terrorist organization and money laundering.

The defendants, 11 men and three women, were arrested on Tuesday morning on arrest warrants issued by an investigative magistrate.

The investigation began on October 28 after the arrest of 29-year-old Constantinos Giatzoglou who sent a letter bomb that seriously injured former Prime Minister Lucas Papademos earlier last year.

The 14 were found to have made deposits in a bank account used by Giatzoglou to withdraw money



</s>Greek Foreign Minister Nicos Kotzias told the Nicosia District Court on Monday that it is a shame that his country and the Church of Cyprus cannot solve amicably a legal dispute over a land transfer.

Kotzias, who is on an official visit to Cyprus, is also representing the Greek state in a trial where he is basically objecting to a land transfer without receiving payment in advance from the Church of Cyprus. He also told the judge that this dispute does not fall under either Greek or Cypriot justice but it is an international dispute, he reportedly said in court.

The foreign minister appeared irritated during his cross-examination on Monday, showing his displeasure towards the attorney representing the Kykkos Holy Monastery.

He reportedly told the court that not even during the junta “were Greece and a Greek minister were so vilified.”

Kykkos and the Greek government are locked in a legal dispute over a plot of land at Metochi Kykkou in Nicosia, which had been sold to the Greek government in 1999 for €500,000.

But the contract reportedly also had a non-written part calling for the embassy to be built within 10 years.

According to local media, the buyer and the seller had a verbal agreement that the Embassy of Greece would be built at the site of the plot within 10 years. Bishop Nikiforos was also quoted as saying “he wanted to be able to see the Greek flag flying just across from Metochi.”

This did not materialize and soon the Greek Ambassador in Nicosia got wind of another sale in the works, where the land was being readied to be sold to a company of Russian interests.

In order for the sale to go forward, the Greek government would be owed compensation to the tune of €2.3 million, according to the sales agreement between Metochi and Greece.

 Archbishop Chrysostomos had sent a letter to the Greek side saying the monastery had the money to pay and it was simply asking for the Land Registry department to officiate the transfer before the transaction.

But Foreign Minister Nicos Kotzias and the Greek government were asking for the payment to go through before they can agree to the title deed transfer.</s>Justice Minister Stavros Kontonis expressed his dismay at the continued detention of two Greek servicemen who were arrested in early March for straying into Turkish territory during a border patrol, citing the lawful response of Greek authorities to similar cases involving three Turkish nationals.

 

 “It is not just the case of the Turk who entered Greek territory and was tried,” he told parliament on Monday, referring to the Turkish municipal worker who was apprehended on the Greek side of the border near the village of Kastanies on May 2, charged with illegal entry and then deported on May 5.

 

 Kontonis revealed that two more Turkish nationals who were detained recently at the port of Killini, in western Greece, were subsequently released by an administrative court in the city of Pyrgos, after the judge accepted the Turkish consulate in Athens as their fixed residence.

 

 “I'm saying this to inform parliament and the public, to make it clear that Greece respects the rule of law. Because when the Greek consulate attended the trial of the two Greek officers and declared the Greek consulate [...] as their place of residence, the similar request to release them was not accepted by the Turkish court,” he said, referring to the court ruling in Edirne.

 

 “Greece upholds the rule of law and does not draw parallels between different illegal and irregular acts,” he said.

 

 “This is a message, not only to the neighboring country, but also to the international community from which we expect a more stable attitude on the issue of the two Greek officers who, to this day, do not know what they are accused of,” he added.</s>WILKES-BARRE, Pa. -- It’s a tradition that’s been going on in Wilkes-Barre for close to 50 years. The Greek Food Festival is underway yet again.

People at the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in Wilkes-Barre feasted their eyes on tasty Greek treats.

Deidra Dimoprulos of Wyalusing said she looks forward to her order every year.

“Oh my gosh, the food is amazing. The people are great, and it gets me away from all my children,” she said.

All the money goes towards operating expenses for the church.

Organizers said putting together the church’s five-day-long fundraiser is no small feat.

“We work for months getting this together, trying to get volunteers too, and trying to accommodate everybody,” church member Theresa Karambelas said.

All that hard work doesn’t go to waste. People say the Greek Food Festival adds to Wilkes-Barre’s taste.

"It's one of the main things we all come to see and eat,” Dimoprulos said.

Whether you want something sweet or savory, the Greek Food Festival has something for everyone.

"I can make some of this stuff myself, but it's better to just come and get theirs,” Elaine Najib of Drums said.

“We are like a family. We're all friends of each other's. This keeps us as a tight community,” Karambelas said.

There’s still time to grab your favorite Greek dish. The Greek Food Festival in Wilkes-Barre continues until 8 p.m. Saturday.</s>In Dead Lagoon, set in Venice, Belfast-born novelist Michael Dibdin has a character who declares “The new Europe will be full of frontiers, both physical and ideological, and they will be rigorously patrolled.” In the age of Brexit, the fate of the Irish Border is only one of the many lines, visible and invisible, that are making themselves obvious.

One invisible border is that between Greek and Turkish airspace. When Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras visited Kastelorizo, a tiny Greek island to which Turkey is currently laying claim, his helicopter was buzzed by Turkish warplanes. It is a recent example of the rising tension between the two countries, fuelled by frequent deliberately provocative incursions of Turkish fighter planes into Greek airspace. A mid-air collision is a disaster waiting to happen. But there are other border collisions, “both physical and ideological” that will be far more disastrous.

As Dibdin’s character predicted, borders are everywhere. Whether it is the line between Greece and Macedonia, or the Hungarian border that refuses Syrian refugees trying to cross from Croatia, or that uncanny no-man’s-land in Karelia between Finland and Russia, they are all lines that separate one nation state from another, one state of mind from another, one set of aspirations from another.

As recently as 1999, Greece and Turkey were on the brink of war over the islands which, Turkey claims, lie on the Turkish continental shelf. On his state visit to Greece last December, Turkish president Recip Erdogan actually demanded the revision of three international treaties which allocated Aegean territories after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

This is part of his plan to ensure his success in next month’s elections, because he needs to close his fist even more firmly on power in the face of growing condemnation of Turkey’s record on human rights, judicial procedures and democratic structures.

Erdogan has shown that the only way he can reinforce his position as “father of the nation” is by creating international mayhem, imprisoning over 70,000 of his “children” (245 of them journalists) and outlawing their activities. He can point to a growth rate of 7.4 per cent in Turkey’s economy. He controls 90 per cent of Turkish media and, since the referendum of 2017 (which he won only narrowly), his position as an executive president, if he is re-elected, will supervene that of parliament.

Erdogan’s recent gambits, all of which are worrying the Greeks, have included his encouragement for ethnic Albanian minorities in Kosovo, Macedonia and Bulgaria to think of themselves as part of a Muslim brotherhood. Rather than the borders agreed by international treaty, Erdogan prefers to speak of “the borders of our hearts” as an inclusive gesture towards a sense of Muslim destiny with himself as hegemon.

When expansionist Turkish nationalism meets a Greek nationalism that is clinging to history for a sense of cohesion, there is little room for diplomacy. Merely hurling reciprocal insults instead of rhetoric, as the Greek and Turkish governments currently do on a daily basis, is not merely undiplomatic but lacking in statesmanship.

Erdogan is also using northeastern Greece (with a large Muslim minority) as leverage. Not only has the short sea crossing from Turkey to Greek islands such as Lesbos become highly political, but now the river Evros, the land border between Greece and Turkey, is at stake, as Erdogan turns his back on his undertaking to the EU to curb the tide of migrants, and turns instead to irredentist gestures as an election tool.

If Turkey moved to occupy Greek islands in the eastern Aegean, could Greece rely on those treaties of 1923, 1932 and 1947? Would international law, which continues to allow the Turkish occupation of northern Cyprus, prevail? Both sides are looking sheepishly to the USA, Nato and Russia for guidance if not protection. That is a measure of how confused the situation has become. Not complex, but confused.

Dibdin’s character also predicts “The European centre cannot hold. The periphery is where the action is. In the new Europe, the periphery is the centre.” A look at the Balkan and Baltic states shows how wrong he was. Except, of course, that these member states and candidates are today almost at war with the centre.

One of Athens’s leading journalists, Nikos Konstandaras, urges Greece to take part in the intense deliberations on the future of Europe, as did President Michael D Higgins when he was here in February. But Greece’s struggle to be part of Europe is hampered because it must constantly look over its eastern shoulder not only at Turkey but also the whole Middle East.

“Identity” is a fragile concept at the best of times. When it is confronted with borders with six neighbouring countries (Italy, Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Turkey and Cyprus) with issues of language, ethnicity, religion, political affiliations and natural resources, the fragility is frightening. Not only is the idea of a united, multicultural Europe receding at the speed of fear, but on its eastern edges Europe is crumbling too.</s>ATHENS – Justice Minister Stavros Kontonis – who said he’d like to try eight Turkish soldiers seeking asylum in Greece – is upset at Turkey for keeping two Greek soldiers who accidentally strayed across the border on March 1 while on patrol during bad weather.

The Turkish soldiers fled to Greece from a failed coup attempt against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in July, 2016 in which they said they didn’t take part but ran in fear for the lives. He has since purged the military and civil society and gained near-dictatorial powers and now is seeking to stay in office with a snap poll he called for June 24.

Kontonis, noting that Greece had just recently returned a Turkish municipal worker who accidentally crossed the border, called on Turkey to do the same with the Greek soldiers. Military members on both sides who strayed across the border have been quickly returned in the past but Erdogan essentially said the Greek soldiers in this case are hostages and bargaining chips to force Greece to return the Turkish soldiers.

“It is not just the case of the Turk who entered Greek territory and was tried,” Kontonis told Parliament on May 7, said Kathimerini.

He revealed that two more Turks who were detained recently at the port of Killini, in western Greece, were subsequently released by an administrative court in the city of Pyrgos, after the judge accepted the Turkish consulate in Athens as their fixed residence.

“I’m saying this to inform Parliament and the public, to make it clear that Greece respects the rule of law. Because when the Greek consulate attended the trial of the two Greek officers and declared the Greek consulate […] as their place of residence, the similar request to release them was not accepted by the Turkish court,” he said, referring to the court ruling in the city of Edirne.

“Greece upholds the rule of law and does not draw parallels between different illegal and irregular acts,” he said.

“This is a message, not only to the neighboring country, but also to the international community from which we expect a more stable attitude on the issue of the two Greek officers who, to this day, do not know what they are accused of,” he added.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras opposes asylum for the Turkish soldiers but said they would not be extradited and rejected Erdogan’s suggestion there should be a soldiers-for-soldiers swap to end the dilemma.
Greek officials arrest 14 men, all but one of which are Greek nationals, on suspicion of funding terrorism.