‘Quick, quick, only thirty five minutes to go’ says Maria as she and Pavlos race around laying out blue director-style chairs next to small metal tables. Bougainvillea frames the screen and the scent of jasmine and honeysuckle blends with the sweet aroma of popcorn from the box office below. Welcome to the VIP balcony at Zephyros open air cinema in the heart of Petralona.
Ninety years ago in 1932, Zephyros began life as a theatre hosting Karagiozis, shadow puppet shows for kids, and variety shows for their parents. Cinemas had arrived in Athens earlier around the turn of the century as the cafés around Syntagma square hosted the provolatzides, projectionists, who unfolded large cloth screens to show movies to the waiting crowds.
Once part of a chain of over fifty theatres, Zephyros is now the only remaining therina sinema, open air cinema, and it is run by three generations of the same family; Maria, aspiring actress, her mother Konstantina, and grandma Georgia who was married to the original owner, himself also an actor.
‘At first I let him act in his own movies but because of my jealousy he was forced to project them instead. Whether he wanted it or not, ‘ relates Georgia with a smile.
‘We continue his dream and we miss him,’ says Konstantina, adding that he saw the cinema as an essential affordable entertainment after the travails of the second world war and the civil war that followed.
Having closed in 1970’s, the cinema was reopened in 1988 showing independent and experimental films alongside well loved Greek classics.
Projectionist Pavlos Lepeniotis opens a storeroom packed to the ceiling with old film canisters,
‘I can’t imagine a life without the cinema. I have been doing it since I was twelve years old and I’ll keep doing it to the end, ‘ he says.
Much of the old cine equipment has been repurposed as evocative decoration around the building and the walls are festooned with posters for 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s arthouse films as if in a roofless museum. However, today the films are projected from a silent box where films are downloaded to a hard drive, a far cry from the ticker-tacker of the old film spools.
‘Cinema Paradiso. I see my life in it,’ replies Pavlos when asked about his favourite film, and it is easy to see the similarities in the two stories.
Down below, the front doors have been opened and cinemagoers queue along the street as Konstantina works the ticket booth and Maria serves drinks and snacks. Neighbourhood cats snake between tables, winding themselves around legs in hope of a treat, beers are poured and clouds of smoke rise into the sultry starlit sky, and then a flourish of loud orchestral music indicates that the show is about to start. Couples chat in the darkness as familiar faces light up the giant screen; here it is not the film that takes top billing but rather the experience itself that tells its own magic story, the history of one family devoted to keeping the people of Athens entertained.
Address: Zephyros, 36 Troon, Petralona, 11851, Tel: 210 346 2677
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