The Los Angeles Greek Film Festival marked its 20th edition in Hollywood with the Orpheus Awards Ceremony, honoring Greek and Cypriot filmmakers and paying tribute to Oscar-winning composer Alexandre Desplat.

The festival’s Closing Night Film and Orpheus Awards Ceremony took place on May 31 at the Egyptian Theatre, in collaboration with the American Cinematheque. This year’s edition brought together filmmakers, artists, industry professionals, and supporters of Greek cinema for a week of screenings, red carpet events, tributes, and awards. The festival’s virtual film program continues through June 14.

Founded in 2007, LAGFF has grown into one of the most important platforms for Greek and Cypriot cinema outside Greece. Over the past two decades, it has screened more than 800 films, hosted over 700 filmmakers, and reached an audience of more than 50,000.

Alexandre Desplat honored at closing night

One of the evening’s major highlights was the presentation of the Honorary Orpheus Award to Alexandre Desplat, one of the most acclaimed film composers working today.

Desplat, who won Academy Awards for his scores for The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Shape of Water, received the honor for his contribution to contemporary cinema. Filmmaker Malcolm Washington presented the award during the Closing Night ceremony, while Fay Lellios produced the tribute.

The evening also included a remembrance tribute to George Kolovos of G.P. Kolovos & Associates, a longtime benefactor of the Los Angeles Greek Film Festival.

“The 20th celebratory edition of LAGFF left indelible memories,” said Aristotle Katopodis, Artistic and Festival Director of LAGFF. “Feting Alexandre Desplat, remembering Dean Tavoularis, and paying respects to our 20-year-long benefactors, the Kolovos family, are images deeply etched in our hearts and souls.”

Katopodis also congratulated the filmmakers whose work was celebrated this year and thanked the festival’s supporters, sponsors, and team for championing Greek cinema.

Hold onto me wins best feature film

The Closing Night Film, Hold Onto Me, directed by Myrsini Aristidou, won the Orpheus Award for Best Feature Film.

The film, which previously won the World Cinema Audience Award at Sundance, was one of the leading titles of this year’s festival. Following the screening, actor Michael Grant hosted a Q&A with Aristidou.

KNX Radio’s Vivianne Linou hosted the Orpheus Awards Ceremony.

2026 orpheus awards winners announced by the Los Angeles Greek film festival

In the animation category, Dream by Semiramis Mamata won the Orpheus Award for Best Animation Film. The Special Jury Award for Animation Film went to Poppy Flowers by Evridiki Papaiakovou.

The Orpheus Award for Best Short Film went to Prelude to a Supernova by Christos Artemiou, while the Special Jury Award for Short Film went to Gekas by Dimitris Moutsiakas.

In the feature film categories, Hold Onto Me by Myrsini Aristidou won Best Feature Film. Krysianna Papadakis and Stergios Dinopoulos received the Orpheus Award for Best Director for Bearcave, while Amerissa Basta received the Special Jury Award for Best Director for Life in a Beat.

The Orpheus Award for Best Performance went to Denise Fraga for Dreaming of Lions. Niovi Charalampous received the Special Jury Award for Best Performance for Smaragda – I Got Thick Skin and I Can’t Jump, while Vangelis Mourikis earned an honorable mention for Patty Is Such a Girly Name.

Audience awards and social justice honors

The Audience Award for Feature Film went to Best Friends Forever by Konstantinos Mousoulis. The Audience Award for Short Film went to The Smoker by Alexa Economacos.

The festival also presented its Social Justice Awards in partnership with Loyola Marymount University’s Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts, Department of Classics and Archaeology.

The Social Justice Award for Short Film went to The Wolves Return by Stelios Moraitidis, while the Social Justice Award for Feature Film went to Maysoon by Nancy Biniadaki.

Award presenters included animator Aliki Theofilopoulos, actor and author Patricia Kara, music composer George Kallis, and film distributor Bill Vergos.

The jury panel included Leo Behrens, Nora Bernard, Karen Cifarelli, Cheng Guo, Harrison James, Chieh-Chih Liao, Eric Nazarian, and Irene Soriano Saxon.

Los Angeles Greek film festival celebrates orpheus awards at the Egyptian theatre

This year’s Closing Night continued LAGFF’s collaboration with the Egyptian Theatre, Netflix, and the American Cinematheque.

The Egyptian Theatre, one of Hollywood’s most historic movie palaces, opened in 1922 and helped shape the early history of film premieres in Los Angeles. Restored through a partnership between Netflix and the American Cinematheque, the venue now combines its historic character with modern projection capabilities.

For LAGFF, the setting offered a symbolic backdrop for a festival that has spent two decades connecting Greek and Cypriot cinema with the wider Los Angeles film community.

It’s only an imaginary birthday, one that was never meant to happen, but the celebrations say a lot about Hollywood’s eternal myth‑making. This Monday, June 1, Marilyn Monroe would have turned 100. And although she died more than 60 years ago, the world remains utterly fascinated by that perfectly imperfect blonde screen icon.

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“Sono il figlio dell’uomo, ho appena ucciso l’uomo del peccato”. È iniziata con questa frase, pronunciata al telefono con il numero di emergenza 911 intorno alle 9:30 del mattino di mercoledì 3 giugno, la vicenda che ha portato all’omicidio dell’attore statunitense James Handy. L’interprete, 81 anni, volto noto in blockbuster globali come “Top Gun: Maverick” e “Jumanji”, è stato ucciso all’esterno della sua abitazione nel quartiere di Tarzana, a Los Angeles.

La scena del crimine e i soccorsi

Giunti sul posto dopo la segnalazione, gli agenti del Dipartimento di Polizia di Los Angeles (LAPD) hanno individuato Handy nel giardino antistante la casa. L’uomo era privo di sensi e presentava una grave ferita da arma da taglio al torace. I paramedici dei vigili del fuoco di Los Angeles lo hanno soccorso e trasportato d’urgenza in ospedale, dove i medici lo hanno dichiarato morto poco dopo l’arrivo a causa della gravità della lesione.

L’arresto del 44enne

Sul luogo del delitto la polizia ha arrestato Michael Gledhill, 44 anni. L’uomo è il figlio della compagna di Handy e risiedeva nella stessa villa insieme alla madre e alla vittima. Secondo quanto verbalizzato dalle autorità, al momento dell’arrivo delle pattuglie, Gledhill è andato fisicamente incontro agli agenti, dichiarando apertamente di essere la persona che stavano cercando. Gledhill è stato preso in custodia e trasferito nel carcere di Van Nuys con l’accusa formale di omicidio. Secondo i registri carcerari pubblici, la cauzione è stata fissata a 2 milioni di dollari. Al momento non risulta l’assegnazione di un avvocato difensore per il 44enne e i messaggi lasciati all’ufficio del difensore d’ufficio della contea non hanno ricevuto risposta. In un comunicato, gli investigatori hanno chiarito che si tratta di un episodio domestico isolato e che non sussistono ulteriori pericoli per la comunità.

Una vita tra grande e piccolo schermo

Nato a New York, James Handy ha costruito una solida carriera decennale come caratterista. Nel 1995 il pubblico lo ha conosciuto per l’interpretazione del disinfestatore in “Jumanji”, mentre nel 2022 era tornato al cinema recitando la parte del barista Jimmy nel successo “Top Gun: Maverick”. La sua filmografia include anche pellicole come “Arachnophobia” (1990) e “The Rocketeer” (1991). Particolarmente attivo sul piccolo schermo, Handy ha lavorato in numerosi drammi polizieschi e serie televisive che hanno fatto la storia del palinsesto. Tra i suoi crediti figurano “NYPD – New York Police Department”, “Beverly Hills 90210”, “Law & Order”, “Profiler – Intuizioni mortali”, la soap opera “Febbre d’amore”, “NCIS: Los Angeles”, “The Closer”, “Cold Case” e, in tempi più recenti, “9-1-1” (2021). L’agenzia che lo rappresentava ha confermato la notizia esprimendo il proprio cordoglio. Pam Ellis-Evenas, della Ellis Talent Group, ha inviato una dichiarazione all’Associated Press: “Non avrei potuto chiedere un cliente e un amico più talentuoso, umile o gentile di James Handy”.

L'articolo “Sono il figlio dell’uomo, ho appena ucciso l’uomo del peccato”: ucciso a coltellate l’attore di Top Gun e Jumanji James Handy, arrestato il figlio della compagna proviene da Il Fatto Quotidiano.

James Handy, an 81-year-old New York actor who had small roles in films such as Jumanji and the more recent Top Gun: Maverick, was killed outside his Los Angeles home. The confessed killer is his girlfriend’s son, a 44-year-old man named Michael Gledhill, who remains jailed on $2 million bail.

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In an insightful opinion piece published in The Guardian on June 3, 2026, titled “What the Hellenic! Why is Christopher Nolan’s new Greek epic entirely devoid of Greeks?”, author Chris Cotonou critiques the conspicuous lack of Greek actors in the director’s highly anticipated blockbuster, The Odyssey.

With an all-star ensemble featuring Matt Damon as Odysseus, alongside Zendaya, Charlize Theron, and Tom Holland, the film’s production team has repeatedly championed the cast as being meticulously chosen to “represent the world.” However, Cotonou points out a glaring irony: in the race to achieve universal global representation, the very country from which the story originates has been entirely unrepresented.

Cotonou highlights that while far-right culture warriors, including Elon Musk, have leveled bad-faith attacks against the casting of Black actor Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy on the grounds of “authenticity,” they are focusing on the wrong target.

For the Greek community, both domestically and across the global diaspora, the frustration stems from a deeper cultural erasure. Cotonou notes that dinner-table debates from Patras to London have been flooded with alternative, Greek-inclusive casting ideas, with many left wondering why beloved diaspora stars like Billy Zane were bypassed entirely. To contextualize this frustration, Cotonou references Greece’s leading film critic, Thodoris Koutsogiannopoulos, who laments that Hollywood continues to perpetuate a “lazy cliché” that views Greekness through the simplistic lens of “Zorba rather than Achilles.”

Greeks secondary to their own story of Odyssey

More significantly, Cotonou argues that this complete omission carries a troubling broader implication. It suggests that Ancient Hellenic stories are viewed by Hollywood as part of a generic “shared Western inheritance,” rendering the actual Greek people incidental or secondary to their own history.

Cotonou draws a poignant parallel to the enduring geopolitical battle over the Parthenon Marbles, noting that the erasure feels as though modern Greeks are no longer viewed as worthy custodians of their ancestral mythology. While acknowledging that international audiences might dismiss the controversy under the guise that The Odyssey is merely fiction, Cotonou emphasizes how intimately interwoven these Homeric epics are with the modern Greek subconscious, identity, and sense of self.

He argues that excluding Greeks from The Odyssey is culturally equivalent to shutting out Hindus from an adaptation of the Mahabharata or stripping Polynesians from a film like Moana.

Ultimately, Cotonou connects the casting dispute back to the timeless, central theme of Homer’s poem: nostos, the deeply human yearning for homecoming after surviving grueling trials. In a Hollywood landscape that increasingly values diversity, Cotonou elegantly concludes that the Greek people are simply asking not to be written out of the journey.

“Papà Clint si è ritirato dal cinema”. Kyle Eastwood l’ha buttata lì durante un’intervista su France3, en passant, senza nemmeno pensarci troppo, mentre presentava un suo concerto. Ebbene, visto che a 48 ore di distanza dalla voce del sen fuggita, l’entourage del 96enne regista e attore di capolavori come Million dollar baby e I ponti di Madison County non ha ancora smentito, è altamente probabile che Giurato numero 2 sia l’ultimo film diretto da Clint Eastwood. “Ho tanti bei ricordi del periodo in cui ho lavorato con lui. Ora è in pensione, ha 95 anni”, ha spiegato Kyle nell’intervista, realizzata prima che suo padre compisse 96 anni domenica 31 maggio. “Sono stato molto fortunato ad aver potuto lavorare con lui in molti film. È stata un’esperienza fantastica per me”.

Kyle, infatti, è musicista jazz e compositore, e ha contribuito con le sue colonne sonore a diversi film del padre, tra cui Lettere da Iwo Jima, Gran Torino e Invictus. Della carriera ultra settantennale di Clint non esistono parole per descriverla. Eastwood è il monumento vivente del cinema, è l’abc del recitare e del dirigere film. La prima interpretazione risale al 1959 per la tv in Gli uomini della prateria e dopo piccole particine al cinema nel 1964 come protagonista di Per un pugno di dollari. L’ultima invece è del 2021 dove è protagonista del suo Cry Macho. Alla regia Eastwood esordisce con Brivido nella notte (1971) per poi dirigere altri 43 film fino appunto al 2024 con Giurato numero 2. Due gli Oscar alla regia (Gli spietati e Million dollar baby) e due Oscar ai film (sempre Spietati nel 1993 e Million dollar baby nel 2005).

Impossibile classificarlo senza ridurne la magnificenza classica e mai banale. Nel 2025 si erano pure inventati una sua falsa intervista su un giornale austriaco, poi da Eastwood smentita: “Recentemente sono apparse alcune notizie che mi riguardano. Ho pensato di fare chiarezza. Posso confermare di aver compiuto 95 anni. Posso anche confermare di non aver mai rilasciato un’intervista a una pubblicazione austriaca chiamata Kurier, né a nessun altro giornalista nelle ultime settimane, e che l’intervista è completamente falsa”.

Nel 2021 Eastwood aveva però ammesso di essersi chiesto se dovesse continuare o meno, dichiarando al Los Angeles Times: “Perché diavolo continuo a lavorare a novant’anni? La gente inizierà a lanciarmi pomodori?”. Ma figuriamoci! “Se questo è il suo canto del cigno”, scrisse un critico statunitense all’uscita di Giurato numero 2, “se ne va con la grazia, l’intelligenza e la complessità che hanno contraddistinto la sua impareggiabile opera, fino a una nota finale che non offre una risposta ma, giustamente, pone una domanda”.

L'articolo “Papà Clint si è ritirato dal cinema. Ora è in pensione, ha 95 anni”: cosa ha detto il figlio Kyle proviene da Il Fatto Quotidiano.

Val Kilmer, scomparso il primo aprile 2025 a causa di una polmonite, era una figura controversa nel mondo del cinema. Il regista Adam Marcus lo ha definito pubblicamente, attraverso un post sui social media, “la peggiore persona” con cui avesse mai collaborato. Lo stesso Kilmer, nel suo documentario autobiografico del 2021 intitolato “Val”, aveva riconosciuto di aver tenuto comportamenti scorretti nel corso della sua carriera, pur dichiarando di non nutrire alcun rimpianto per le proprie azioni.

Il regista Adam Marcus ha ricordato Val Kilmer a più di un anno dalla scomparsa. I due hanno lavorato assieme nel thriller d’azione del 2008 “Conspiracy”.

Il 31 maggio scorso sui canali social di Marcus è apparsa la scritta”#MicroIntellectMonday (insulto sarcastico per definire una persona di scarsa intelligenza, ndr) a quel periodo in cui ho diretto quel tizio. Quello che interpretava Iceman e Doc Holliday. Sapete chi è”, ha scritto Marcus su Threads, secondo quanto riportato da Entertainment Weekly. “Ecco me e quel cretino che lavoriamo insieme sul set di Conspiracy. Quindi sì, è successo davvero”, ha concluso.

In “Conspiracy”, Kilmer interpretava William “Spooky” MacPherson, un veterano disabile della guerra in Iraq che si reca in Arizona per far visita a un vecchio amico. Quando scopre che l’amico e la sua famiglia sono misteriosamente scomparsi (e che gli abitanti del luogo negano la loro esistenza), MacPherson scopre un complotto aziendale ai danni di immigrati clandestini.

L'articolo “Val Kilmer è la persona peggiore con cui abbia mai lavorato. Un cretino”: lo sfogo del regista Adam Marcus. L’attore è morto di polmonite nel 2025 proviene da Il Fatto Quotidiano.

On June 1, Norma Jeane Mortenson would have turned 100. She died at the age of 36, on August 4, 1962, but her artistic alter ego, Marilyn Monroe, became a film legend. The Bombshell Blonde façade concealed a very harsh childhood during which she lived in as many as 12 foster homes, a torturous romantic life, and a career marked by artistic self-doubt and very poor health (she never carried a pregnancy to term).

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With five Academy Awards to his name, Alejandro González Iñárritu, 62, had few things left to achieve, and this week he crossed one off. The award-winning Mexican director, who will release his ninth film this fall — the dramedy Digger, starring Tom Cruise — has returned to his native city to join the Colegio Nacional de México, one of the most prestigious academic institutions in the Spanish-speaking world. As its new 38th member and the first filmmaker ever asked to join the honorary academy, his entire craft is also entering the institution: an art that has historically played different roles, he says, from “its use by governments for ideologies and repression” to “poetry and inspiration,” and also “entertainment.”

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As a child, Camila Morrone (Los Angeles, 28) found it odd when she heard her mother and father arguing and repeating the same lines over and over in her family living room. She later understood that her parents’ profession — they are both actors — required long hours of learning lines, rehearsing scripts, and attending auditions that did not always have the hoped-for outcome. The actress has said she grew to feel some aversion to acting during her teens, though deep down she knew it was the path she would follow.

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In 2011, Karl von Randow and Matt Buchanan, two tech-loving New Zealand film buffs, launched Letterboxd, a movie review and rating app inspired by Goodreads, the platform that does the same for books. For several years, they juggled this small project with their work at a web design studio. Then came the Covid-19 pandemic. In March 2020, they hired their first full-time employee, and with the world confined to their homes, their user base exploded. In 2023, the company was acquired by the Canadian company Tiny and today boasts over 26 million user profiles. While this figure seems insignificant compared to companies like Instagram (with around three billion active users), it reflects the cultural power of film as a source of conversation. Those who love movies enjoy watching them as much as discussing and analyzing them in detail, and Letterboxd is aimed at that community — including famous filmmakers and performers.

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In the world of television, Girls marked a before and after when it premiered in 2012. If Sex and the City, which debuted 14 years earlier, reminded women of their power and their right to have fun and take control of their lives, Girls — the quintessential millennial series, written, directed, and starring Lena Dunham — delved much deeper into the realities of everyday life, far less glamorous for ordinary people.

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