Margarita Manda
She was born in Athens. She studied Political Science and French Literature at the Kapodistrian University of Athens, and is also a graduate in Film Direction from the Stavrakos Film School in Athens. She has worked as AD for many Greek filmmakers. She was Assistant Director to Theo Angelopoulos on the films: Ulysses’ Gaze, Eternity and a Day, The Weeping Meadow, The Dust of Time.
She has written and directed feature and short fiction films, medium- and feature-length documentaries, videos for stage productions, and corporate videos. ΄ She collaborated with renowned photographer Josef Koudelka and wrote for his book Periplanissis: Following Ulysses’ Gaze (Thessaloniki International Film Festival, 1995), as well as for the exhibition Periplus: 12 Magnum Photographers in Contemporary Greece (Benaki Museum, June 2004). In 2004, she worked for the Video Department of the opening and closing ceremonies of the Athens Olympic Games, filming scenes of the city preparing for the Olympics. These were shown at the OAKA Stadium during the opening and closing ceremonies. She edited and wrote the appendices for the published screenplays of Theo Angelopoulos’s films Ulysses’ Gaze (Kastaniotis Publications, 1995) and Trilogy: The Weeping Meadow (Electra Publications, 2004) Her novel, Mnimi akatikiti (Uninhabited Memory), was published by Metaichmio Publications in October 2002. In 2013, Metaichmio also published her personal journal, To proto pragma pou ’kane o Theos itan to taxidi… (The First Thing God Made Was the Journey…), chronicling the shooting of Theo Angelopoulos’s Ulysses’ Gaze.