Giorgos Karypidis

George Karypidis (1946-2019) is one of those rare examples of Greek directors who have observed and recorded in a meticulous yet lyrical way the Greek reality of four decades.

Born in the city of Thessaloniki in 1946, George Karypidis and his diverse cinema have been inextricably linked to the Thessaloniki Film Festival from a very early age. The beginning was in 1975, when the excellent Last Station, Kreuzberg won the Second Prize in the Short Film category. In 1979, the short film The Painter Theophilos was honored with three awards (including the Best Short Film of the Festival), while three years later, his feature debut, Dangerous Game (1982), won the Panhellenic Union of Film Critics Award. In 1988, the moment of triumph came, as the film In the Shadow of Fear won 7 awards – including those for Best Picture and Best Director – and was selected as Greece’s official submission for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film at the 61st Academy Awards.