Suddenly, Greece-Featured TV Series Without Boundaries Gain Acclaim
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Loading... - Benci Kiraly
- 19 Apr 2023
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Greek TV seems to be an anachronistic dreary scene of 1960’s black-and-white films from the Golden Age of cinema, reality shows and 1980’s situation comedies but some gems have emerged, garnering international attention.
In a feature, the news site Variety that’s the bible of the film business noted that France’s Series Mania featured some Greek TV series, including Amazon Prime Video’s Greek Salad, the last part of a trilogy from director Cédric Klapisch.
A Greek series bowed in the festival’s international competition for the first time: Vasilis Kekatos’ Milky Way, directed by the short film Palme d’Or winner, a teen drama the site said is part of a bold new wave of Greek storytelling.
“We have amazing talents in Greece. What was missing was a little bit of craziness … and a huge willingness to take a risk,” said Vasilis Chrysanthopoulos, of series producers Foss Prods. “But it’s possible.”
It’s not just domestic companies interested either, with foreign companies drawn to Greece but generous subsidies including 40 percent cash rebates for filming in the country that has led to a surge in TV and movie productions.
In 2022, Greece produced more than 40 scripted series and hosted buzzy foreign TV shows include Prime Video’s Daisy Jones & the Six and the Apple TV+ series Tehran as well.
That has pushed Greece’s long somnambulate TV market to ratchet up its quality and get in on the game and take financial and creative risks or otherwise risk being left behind.
“When we launched our first project, The Other Me season 1, nobody was doing miniseries,” Faye Tsitsipi, of pay-TV network Cosmote TV told the news site about the prevalent attitude.
“They had no idea back in 2018, 2019. It was very strange to people that someone was producing an eight-episode series. Things have changed,” she said, with season 3, for MipTV going “way beyond our imagination.”
Fenia Cossovitsa, of Blonde Prods., who provided production services for Greek Salad and season 3 of Tehran said ,“Broadcasters finally got the message … you have to invest if you want to create a library with original, high-end content.”
The Greek TV industry, like most of the country, took a brutal hit in the 2010-18 economic and austerity crisis that saw a loss of 25 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and saw only the rich continue to prosper. Read More…
