World Film Locations: Athens Anna Poupou 9781783203598

A filmic guidebook of the Greek capital, World Film Locations: Athens takes readers to film locations in the central historical district with excursions to the periphery of Athens - popular neighbourhoods, poor suburbs and slums often represented in postwar neorealist films - and then on to garden cities and upper class suburbs, especially those preferred by the auteurs of the 1970s. Of course, no Grecian vacation would be complete without a visit to the sea, and summer resorts, hotels and beaches near Athens are frequent backdrops for international productions. However, more recent economic strife has emptied city neighbourhoods, created urban violence and caused an increase in riots in the Mediterranean city, and representations of this on film are juxtaposed with images of the eternal and idyllic city. Featuring both Greek and foreign productions from various genres and historical periods, World Film Locations: Athens ultimately works to establish connections between the various aesthetics of dominant representations of Athens.

Anna Poupou, Afroditi Nikolaidou, and Eirini Sifaki work as a research team in the broader area of film, television, and media studies and are coeditors of City and Cinema: Theoretical and Methodological Approaches.

'Reading the book World Film Locations: Athens feels like riding a hop-on hop-off bus through time and, of course, space...With the more recent films, the more familiar ones, you appreciate how your point of view shifts. If Athens is your city, you look at her anew. If it is not, the encounter seems enchanting. In any case, the result is the same: you instantly desire to stroll like a tourist amidst her wonders. Old cinema, new cinema, old Athens, new Athens - the rides are endless, by bus or not.'