Abstract: Greek Identity
In this paper, I examine recent Greek films submitted to the 2025 Los Angeles Greek Film Festival and others screened during Greek Cinema Week. My analysis focuses on how history and identity are represented through media to construct culture and meaning, fostering a sense of belonging and community that transcends national boundaries, particularly in relation to Greekness. Drawing on Stuart Hall’s theories of representation, Richard Clogg’s historical analysis of modern Greece, and the transnational perspectives explored in Hellenisms, I analyze six films: Unforgettable Homeland: Asia Minor, A Couple of Years, Xenia, Hostage, Black Stone, and Between a Rock and a Hard Place. Each film engages with themes of belonging, displacement, and cultural transformation in response to the polycrises that have shaped 21st-century Greece. I explore how these films portray migrant and diasporic experiences, both into and out of Greece, to challenge essentialist notions of Greek identity rooted in ethnicity, religion, or geography. I argue that these cinematic works depict Greekness as a fluid, relational process shaped by trauma, memory, and intercultural exchange. Beyond reflecting social realities, the films function as cultural interventions, actively participating in the redefinition of belonging in contemporary Greece. This paper aims to foreground the role of cinema in expanding our understanding of Greek identity at a time of global crisis and cultural reimagining.
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