“A Song for Argyris” celebrates prestigious premiere in Athens

12.10.2007

The Swiss documentary film “A Song for Argyris” will celebrate its Greek premiere in Athens on October 14, 2007. In attendance for the screening at the renowned Benaki Museum will be Greek President Karolos Papoulias, legendary composer Mikis Theodorakis, singer Maria Farantouri, as well as German and Swiss diplomats. The film’s director, Stefan Haupt, along with the movie’s protagonist, 67-year-old Argyris Sfountouris, will also be given the chance to welcome the major of the martyr village Distomo and the director of the Greek broadcasting station ERT, which will be among the guests of honor.
Ahead of the premiere and its theatrical release on November 1 (Distribution: Filmtrade), the film received great resonance with the Greek media. It commemorates one of the darkest chapters of modern Greek history: the massacre committed by a division of the SS in the peasant village of Distomo on June 10, 1944. As a result of the killings, four-year-old Argyris lost his parents and more than 30 of his relatives. Along with other children of similar fate, he spent numerous years in orphanages before he was taken to the Pestalozzi Children’s Village in Trogen, Switzerland. Argyris Sfountouris, a talented mathematician, has since been engaged in advancing peace and against forgetting.


Nominated for the 2007 Swiss Film Prize, “A Song for Argyris” has received significant international recognition: It won audience awards at film festival in Thessaloniki (March), and Los Angeles (June). Since May 2007, it is shown in German movie theatres (Distribution: Salzgeber), and will be released in theatres in Spain in December (Distribution: Parallel 40), and in Austria in January (Distribution: Polyfilm). Its distribution in the United States is also in the planning (First Run/Icarus Films).



Zurich, October 12, 2007