Harvey Keitel in Athens for the screening of «Ulysses' Gaze» by Theodoros Angelopoulos
The 16th Athens Open Air Film Festival powered by DEI and co-organized by the Culture, Sports, and Youth Organization of the City of Athens (OPANDA), announces the official opening of this year’s edition with the most glamorous and distinguished guest, Harvey Keitel, who will honor us with his presence on Thursday, June 18th at the Open Theater of Kolonos to present “Ulysses' Gaze” by Theodoros Angelopoulos, in which he stars.
Thursday, June 18th 2026
20h30 | Open Theater of Kolonos
Harvey Keitel is one of the most important actors in contemporary American cinema. From Martin Scorsese’s “Mean Streets” and “Taxi Driver”, Jane Campion’s “The Piano”, Ridley Scott’s “Thelma & Louise”, Wes Anderson’s “The Grand Budapest Hotel” and “Moonrise Kingdom” to Quentin Tarantino’s “Reservoir Dogs” and “Pulp Fiction”, Keitel has carved out an astonishing career, full of boldness and performing truth, spanning over five decades, an Oscar nomination, a Best Actor Award at the Venice Film Festival and countless other distinctions. He is considered one of the greatest method actors to have graced cinema, and alongside Al Pacino and Ellen Burstyn, he serves as president of the legendary Actors Studio.
What sets Keitel apart, however, is not just the major American productions, but also his ongoing exploration of international independent cinema. His collaboration with Theodoros Angelopoulos on “Ulysses Gaze” (1995) is perhaps the most characteristic expression of this quest.
Thirty years later, the film’s return to Athens, as a modest tribute to the work of a primary figure in Greek and world cinema—more so in the presence of the film’s leading actor—is a rare cinematic moment worth experiencing.
ULYSSES’ GAZE (1995, 179’)
Directed by: Theodoros Angelopoulos
Starring: Harvey Keitel, Maia Morgenstern, Erland Josephson, Thanasis Vengos, Eva Kotamanidou, Giorgos Mihalakopoulos, Mania Papadimitriou
Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival.
Greek-American director A. returns to his homeland after many years, searching for three reels of unreleased film by the Manakis Brothers, pioneers of cinema in the Balkans. The desperate search for the film that captured the first glance on this peninsula becomes, at the same time, a search for a gaze on the part of A. (Angelopoulos, by extension), who is looking for a new way to see the world again.
A.’s odyssey is not a Homeric Odyssey. All Homeric counterparts are recognizable only as motifs, scattered elements in the long journey of composition. Now that all ideologies have collapsed, now that the socialist dream has been swept away by the river of History, the adventure of the gaze is the only adventure left to narrate.
We would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to Phoebe Oikonomopoulou-Angelopoulou, the life partner of Greece’s greatest film director, and their daughters Anna, Katerina and Eleni for their cooperation and support.
INFORMATION
Thursday, June 18th 2026
Arrival time: 20h00
Starting time: 20h30
Open Theater of Kolonos (Hill of Hippio, Ioanninon & Kapaneos str., Athens)
FREE ENTRANCE
Through its collaboration with the Athens Open Air Film Festival powered by DEI, DEI continues for a third year to bring cinema to iconic locations in Athens offering the public unique cultural experiences, while converting summer evenings into moments of art, imagination and light.
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