Grigoris Grigoriou

Grigoris Grigoriou (1919–2005) was a Greek screenwriter and film director. Grigoriou was a Greek director. He was the son of the then well-known lawyer Michalis Grigoriou. He studied law and political science at the University of Athens, as well as foreign languages, took lessons in the theater department of the University Club but eventually became a self-taught director. During the German Occupation, he took part in the Battle of Crete, he was eventually captured by the Germans, escaped and then joined and fought through the lines of the EAM (National Liberation Front). From 1942 to 1949 he worked in the Legal Department of AETE (the predecessor of today's Hellenic Telecommunications Organisation). A film director since 1949 and theater since 1951. In 1948 he wrote the script and directed his first film The Red Cliff. His film Bitter Bread (1951) is considered a landmark for Greek cinema as the first neorealist Greek film in which he combined Italian neorealism with Greek reality criticizing the authorities. He stopped his film activity in 1971 with thirty feature films to his credit. Also, Grigoris Grigoriou directed many plays at the radio theater of the state radio, while from 1949 he was a co-founder of the Lykourgos Stavrakos Film School and from 1957 a professor of the Drama School. His presence in television was also intense with his direction in Immortal Love Stories and Kapodistrias as well as in a series of plays on ERT. The television series of the literary wo…