The ultimate comedy double feature! The 16th AOFF powered by DEI presents “Airplane!” & “Top Secret!” with a view of the Acropolis

Airplanes, secret missions, countless gags and the comic genius of the ZAZ team (David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker) come together in a delightfully entertaining double feature guaranteed to deliver plenty of laughs!

Just before we head off on holiday, on Saturday, July 25, the 16th Athens Open Air Film Festival powered by DEI will once again transform the Dionysiou Areopagitou pedestrian walkway into an open-air cinema and prepare for take-off with two of the most enjoyable film parodies of the 1980s: “Airplane!” and “Top Secret!” Admission is free, with the Acropolis providing a spectacular backdrop.

Airplane!
When: Saturday 25 July | 21:00 
Where: Pedestrian precinct of Dionysiou Areopagitou str., (at the junction with Parthenonos str.) | Free Admission

When the crew and passengers of an aircraft suffer from mass food poisoning that puts the flight in immediate danger, a former pilot takes it upon himself to land the plane safely. In the parody film subgenre, the 80s saw the great Mel Brooks pass the torch to the ZAZ team (David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, Jerry Zucker), who would leave their mark on American comedy thanks to a series of films that deconstructed classic film genres and recent, at the time, box-office hits.

It all began with “Airplane!”, a film that starts out as a parody of Hollywood disaster movies—particularly the “Airport” series—but also includes satirical references to other popular films of the era. This film marked the beginning of the ZAZ brothers’ collaboration with actor Leslie Nielsen, which would reach its peak a few years later with the “The Naked Gun” trilogy, with the actor joined here by an enviable star-studded cast, including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves (“Mission: Impossible”), and Robert Stack (“The Untouchables”). Despite its relatively short runtime (just 88 minutes), the film features a wealth of hilarious scenes, brilliantly conceived and masterfully executed, making it one of the best (and most successful at the box office) film comedies of all time. Vaggelis Vitsikas

Directed by: David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, Jerry Zucker | Starring: Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty, Leslie Nielsen, Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Robert Stack | Duration: 88' | Year of Production: 1980

Top Secret!
When: Saturday 25 July | 22:30 
Where: Pedestrian precinct of Dionysiou Areopagitou str., (at the junction with Parthenonos str.) | Free Admission

A famous American singer is invited to perform a concert in East Germany to serve as a diversion during a NATO operation to destroy submarines, but soon becomes involved in a resistance group’s plan to rescue an imprisoned scientist. With “Top Secret!”, one of their best films, the ZAZ comedy trio (Zucker, Abrahams, Zucker) blends seemingly disparate genres: spy adventure, war film, and the… rock musicals of Elvis Presley. Despite this incompatible “matrimony” the film not only works but soars into the realm of comic surrealism that only the Marx Brothers, back in the 30s, could have conceived and executed with equal effectiveness.

One gag succeeds the other at machine-gun speed; very often, more than one gag unfolds simultaneously within the same frame, the ZAZ brothers effortlessly demonstrate their comedic genius, and a young Val Kilmer makes his film debut in the role of a fictional rock ‘n’ roll star. Vaggelis Vitsikas

Directed by: David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, Jerry Zucker | Starring: Val Kilmer, Lucy Gutteridge, Christopher Villiers, Omar Sharif, Peter Cushing | Duration: 88' | Year of Production: 1984