Carte Blanche to Yannis Bakogiannopoulos

Opening Nights revive Yannis Bakogiannopoulos’ legendary television show, "Film Club", that nurtured generations upon generations of movie lovers on public television. The renowned critic chooses five plus one little-known masterpieces and then writes and talks about them, as the program is accompanied by live presentations.

The films run the entire gamut of world cinema and are timeless and cross cultural: from 1955 India and the birth of one its most significant directors, Satyajit Ray ("Pather Panchali"), all the way to 1956 North America, the beloved Western genre and the high point of John Ford’s sprawling career ("The Searchers").

From the intricate Borgesian labyrinth of trailblazing Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci ("The Spider's Stratagem", 1969) all the way to the tortured metaphysical existentialism of great Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Zanussi ("The Illumination", 1972) and Alain Resnais’ extraordinary essay-documentary about concentration camps ("Night and Fog", 1955).

The cherry on top is an essential and totally unknown gem of contemporary European cinema, a beautifully choreographed ballet of bodies and light that introduces us to French filmmaker Clair Denis’ vision of Africa in "Beau Travail" (1999).