When he was young, filmmaker Constantine Papanicolaou (also known as C.P.) spent countless summers visiting his grandparents in Greece. He saw the mountains everywhere, but he couldn’t imagine them with snow.
He went on to become a well-known action sports director, touring the globe and making movies for companies like Oakley and Red Bull. He became one of the world’s top action filmmakers and now he has his camera pointed in a different direction: Greece.
CP has embarked on an ambitious project to make a film about Greece— for Greece. As he explains in his promotional video, he got tired of hearing so much negativity about the country he knew and loved so much. He wanted to use his talents and skills to do something positive for Greece.
After several visits to the country’s beautiful mountains, he partnered with local skiers and snowboarders and shot the footage needed to make a movie that he thinks will help boost Greece as a winter tourism destination. Inspired by the gods who once inhabited the very mountains he shot for his film, he’s making Frozen Ambrosia.
To make this project come to life he started a Kickstarter campaign to fund the completion of the movie, which includes costly effects, editing and other filmmaking magic that is needed to get to a first-rate finished product.
Papanicolaou built a loyal and passionate following of supporters in Greece, who also saw their country’s potential as a winter destination and wanted to help, but due to the country’s banking restrictions they can’t help with funds.
As a diaspora Greek himself, he’s hoping other Greeks from around the world who care about the country as much as he does will jump onboard his project and help him. Constantine gives a compelling and heartfelt pitch in the short film he shot for Kickstarter:
3 comments
Great effort by Constantine Papanicolaou!! Greece is not only about beaches and sun but it has numerous other secrets that they are waited to be revealed!
This is a slight rant, so bare with me.
I just wanted to point out that the shot of the map in this video has the word “Macedonia” crossed out. I find this problematic. It is quite clearly political, and highly controversial. In the current environment that Greece finds itself in, I don’t think it’s wise to be pushing our luck with stunts like that. If the word “Macedonia” used as the name for the independent sovereign nation to the north of Greece bothers whoever made the video – then use another map. Crossing it out sends a very strong message. It tells people that Greeks are petty, immature, and unwilling to compromise on matters that aren’t black-and-white. It’s not just a matter of “Macedonia is Greek, therefore they’re wrong.” I challenge whoever crossed that out to really (REALLY) look into the Macedonian Question as it developed from the mid-1800s to today (look at Ottoman records, read Krste Misirkov, learn about the population exchanges).
As a Greek from Northern Greece, from the region of Macedonia, who has lived experience and formal academic study about the multicultural makeup of the area I find the choice to cross out the word “Macedonia” extremely problematic. I’m sure this message will fall on deaf ears, and I’m also sure I’ll get called names and my dedication to the Greek nation will be criticized – and therein lies the issue.
It might just be a few seconds on this video, and it might not seem like a big deal for some people…but it’s little things like this that demonstrate a hypernationalized and ethnocentric narrative in today’s Greece that marginalizes communities and will ultimately prevent Greece from being a modernize, democratic country that we can keep being proud of.