Maria Iliou
Maria Iliou is a Greek film director, scriptwriter and producer, well known in Greece and internationally both for her feature films and the historical documentaries she has directed in recent years. She was born in Greece and lives and works in Athens and New York City. Her most well-known films are the features, The Four Seasons (1996), Alexandria, a Love Story (2002) and the historical documentaries The Journey: The Greek American Dream (2007), Smyrna, The Destruction of a Cosmopolitan City, 1900–1922 (2012), From Both Sides of the Aegean (2012) and Dear Aunt Lena (2017). Her films have been shown in various countries and have won major distinctions and awards. Early years Maria Iliou was born in Athens in 1960, the daughter of Maria-Leda Krontira, an educator and writer of children’s books, and tobacco merchant Andreas Iliou. On her mother's side she is descended from the island of Cephalonia and Athens and on her father's from Smyrna in Asia Minor. From a very young age she took part in the radio programs of her grandmother, Antigone Metaxa (Aunt Lena) on Hellenic Public Radio (EIR) telling stories and singing songs as well as in the radio plays of her grandfather, Kostas Krontiras’