July 1, 2020
Thank you Loukas, thank you Maria, to all of our partners at the Athens Film Festival. I also want to say a huge thank you to Mayor Bakoyannis and Mrs. Rokofyllou for sharing with us what certainly is the most beautiful drive-in movie theater in the whole world.
We’re very proud of our partnership over the years with the Athens Film Festival and delighted that, in this unusual summer of the Coronavirus pandemic, we were able to continue that partnership in this very special way.
Loukas told you a little bit about the background and the history of this film, but he left out, I think, what is the most important fact, which is that the profits from American Graffiti are what enabled George Lucas to go on and produce his real dream, which was the Star Wars franchise.
As Loukas said, this is a movie about California in the 1960s. It’s about cars. It’s about rock and roll. But it’s also about our rural life. The setting of it is not Hollywood or Los Angeles or San Francisco, it’s a small city in the center of California which is a lot like the Trikala of my home state.
I just want to say what a pleasure it is for us to share this with some of our friends here in Athens, especially some of our senior partners, several Ministers from the Greek government, Niko and Elias from the American Chamber of Commerce. We’ve been working with each other virtually over Skype for many months now, and it’s just great to see everybody in real life again. I hope you’ll enjoy this evening as much as we enjoy sharing it with you.
