Known for Acting
Irene Papas (Greek: Ειρήνη Παππά, born Eirini Lelekou (Greek: Ειρήνη Λελέκου), 3 September 1929 – 14 September 2022) was a Greek actress and singer who starred in over 70 films in a career spanning more than 50 years. She gained international recognition through such popular award-winning films as The Guns of Navarone (1961), Zorba the Greek (1964) and Z (1969). She was a powerful protagonist in films including The Trojan Women (1971) and Iphigenia (1977). She played the title roles in Antigone (1961) and Electra (1962). She had a fine singing voice, on display in the 1968 recording Songs of Theodorakis. Papas won Best Actress awards at the Berlin International Film Festival for Antigone and from the National Board of Review for The Trojan Women. Her career awards include the Golden Arrow Award in 1993 at Hamptons International Film Festival, and the Golden Lion Award in 2009 at the Venice Biennale. Description above from the Wikipedia article Irene Papas, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Born
September 3, 1929
Died
September 14, 2022 (age 93)
Birthplace
Chiliomodi, Corinth, Greece
Filmography
71 films, 14 shows


1821 at the Cinema
2021 · 32m
country: Greece
In 1821, in Cinema, he records the cinematic representations of the Revolution from the first decades of the 20th century. until the present day. Despite the fact that the Revolution of 1821 constitutes the founding act of the modern Greek state, as a subject matter it is underrepresented in national film production. This is one of the points on which the research looks, which simultaneously examines the periods of concentration of films on the subject of the Revolution or, respectively, the periods of its collective silence. The purpose of the documentary is to study the ideological discourse and the cinematic language of the films with the theme of 1821, in order to highlight the function of the cinema as a carrier of Public History and as a factor in shaping the collective historical consciousness.


Morceaux de Cannes
2021 · 53m
country: France
We thought we'd seen, read, and heard everything there was to see about the Cannes Film Festival, from the glitz and gossip to the scandals and censorship. And yet, Emmanuel Barnault's "Morceaux de Cannes" (Pieces of Cannes), by this leading expert on Italian and French cinema, convinces us otherwise. The third largest event in the world (after the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup) reveals its secrets only sparingly, as this film attests. The result of passionate research in the INA archives, these 52 minutes, without interviews or voice-over narration, string together rare and sometimes previously unseen footage. Taken together, they tell a surprising, original, and heartwarming story of the Festival. On the beach, on a street corner, in a restaurant, or in the privacy of a hotel room, these forgotten archives summon the greatest filmmakers, actors, and actresses of the last seventy years, from Jean Cocteau to David Lynch, for an anthology of the Festival's history.


Il falso bugiardo
2008 · 1h 18m
country: Italy
Based upon Vincenzoni's biography, "Pane e cinema", the documentary traces the story of the screen play writer who invented many stories that became blockbusters throughout the world.


A Talking Picture
2003 · 1h 36m
country: Portugal
A meditation on civilization. July, 2001: friends wave as a cruise ship departs Lisbon for Mediterranean ports and the Indian Ocean. On board and on day trips in Marseilles, Pompeii, Athens, Istanbul, and Cairo, a professor tells her young daughter about myth, history, religion, and wars. Men approach her; she's cool, on her way to her husband in Bombay. After Cairo, for two evenings divided by a stop in Aden, the captain charms three successful, famous (and childless) women, who talk with wit and intellect, each understanding the others' native tongue, a European union. The captain asks mother and child to join them. He gives the girl a gift. Helena sings. Life can be sweet.


...and the train leaves for the sky
2001 · 1h 33m
country: Bulgaria
Georgia, the Soviet Union, 1937. Two boys, a Greek and a Georgian, meet and become friends. From their carefree, everyday routine and the calm, humorous life of the small neighborhood, emerges the tragedy of the period with the persecution of the Greeks, who were exiled and imprisoned.


Captain Corelli's Mandolin
2001 · 2h 11m
country: France
When a fisherman leaves to fight with the Greek army during World War II, his fiancée falls in love with the local Italian commander.


Yerma
1999 · 1h 58m
country: Spain
Yerma is desperate to have children, so when a psychic advises her to look outside her marriage to conceive, what can she say but yes?


Inquietude
1998 · 1h 50m
country: Portugal
An anthology film drama featuring a poetic mirror structure based on existential identity. In "The Immortals," adapted from a Helder Prista Monteiro play, two famous doctors, an 80-year-old father, and his 60-year-old son, contemplate senility and death. "Suzy," from an Antonio Patricio story, is set in the '30s when a young courtesan dies on the operating table. "Mother of the River" is from an Agustina Bessa-Luis fable about eternal life.


Party
1996 · 1h 32m
country: France
The battle of the sexes? The forces of despair and seduction? On S. Miguel in the Azores, Rogério, a young man with old money, and his enigmatic wife Leonor host a garden party at their villa. The intriguing guests are an older unmarried couple, the philosophical and observant Irene, and Michel, a roué. While Rogério and Irene talk, Michel and Leonor go down to the sea. The conversations upset Rogério and capture Leonor's imagination. Five years later, the four dine at the villa. Michel and Leonor again leave the other two. Intentions and undercurrents are subtle. One of the four proves strong, one weak, and two must choose. Wind and rain bring down the curtain on both acts.


Jacob
1994 · 1h 34m
country: Austria
Isaac's son Jacob deprives his brother Esau of his birthright and has to flee for his life. He finds shelter with his uncle Laban, but is himself deceived. Finally, Jacob has to face both his uncle and brother.
Un Amore Rubato
Un Amore Rubato
1993
country: Italy


Lettera da Parigi
1993
country: Italy


Up, Down and Sideways
1992 · 1h 48m
country: Greece
A prosperous widow with a gay son falls for a young gym instructor in Athens.


Island
1989 · 1h 33m
country: Australia
Island is Paul Cox's serene and beautiful film which explores a spectrum of emotions - ranging from extreme passion to fear, leading to murder - from loneliness to sensuality. Three women from Australia, Sri Lanka, and Greece meet on a Greek island. All are exiles escaping from their own personal tragedies. Ultimately, it is the island itself, with the generosity and warmth of the islanders, which leads all three women to revelations about themselves and their place in the world.


Plato's Banquet
1989 · 1h 18m
country: France
At house of Agathon get together many intellectuals and philosophers, including Socrates, to discuss the theme of love and sex: each of them intervenes to support its argument dialogical rules, within the context symposial.


High Season
1987 · 1h 34m
country: United Kingdom
On the isle of Rhodes, Katherine, an expatriate English photographer, lives with her daughter. A young local wants to encourage tourism, so he commissions a sculpture of the Unknown Tourist for the town square; the sculptor he brings to Rhodes is Kate's ex-husband. Also there to see Kate is Sharp, an aging antiquarian and her dear friend. He has something important to tell her. As Kate, her ex, and Sharp sort out things that go back years, two English tourists bumble about, one thinking he's fallen in love with Kate, his wife thinking she's found her own lover. A rare vase, a spy, old friendships, the statue's unveiling, and off-hand English sorting-out play into the resolution.


Chronicle of a Death Foretold
1987 · 1h 49m
country: Italy
This suspenseful Italian crime drama is set in a Colombian river town and chronicles the series of events that led up to murder. Based on a novel by distinguished author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the tale begins in the present as a middle-aged doctor returns to the village after a twenty-year absence to investigate the murder that occurred just before he left.


Sweet Country
1987 · 2h 30m
country: Greece
An American couple in Chile is drawn into the turmoil that followed President Salvador Allende's 1973 overthrow.


A Child Called Jesus
1987 · 3h 10m
country: Italy
The film attempts to fill in the "missing years" of Jesus, from ages 3 through 12. When King Herod fearing that the Messiah has indeed been born, orders that all Hebrew male children under the age of three be slain, Joseph moves his family near Egypt. Here, Jesus, sensing His divinity, expresses a desire to return to Nazareth. Travelling homeward with His mother Mary, Jesus flashes forward to events that will unfold in his adult life.


The Assisi Underground
1985 · 1h 55m
country: United States
This film sheds light on the role of the Catholic Church and the people of Assisi in rescuing Italian Jews from the Nazis in 1943.


Into the Night
1985 · 1h 55m
country: United States
Ed Okin used to have a boring life. He used to have trouble getting to sleep. Then one night, he met Diana. Now, Ed's having trouble staying alive.


Afghanistan For What?
1984
country: Morocco
The movie deals with the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the struggle of the Afghan people against them, through the story of an Afghan girl, a university professor and a religious scholar before the deterioration of the situation in Afghanistan.


Erendira
1983 · 1h 43m
country: France
While Erendira, a beautiful teenage girl, has a surreal mystical vision, her grandmother's house catches on fire and burns to the ground. Her grandmother holds Erendira responsible and, in order to extract restitution from the girl, forces her into prostitution. Erendira's surreal mystical experiences continue while her grandmother grows rich from exploiting her.


The Deserter
1983 · 1h 32m
country: Italy
In this tragic story that has an unrealized potential to tug at the emotions, a woman in mourning for her two sons lost in World War I is the only one in her village determined to financially support a war memorial. The village poor have too little money, and the richer are tight-fisted. She has given a whole 15 years of savings -- yet the good priest, for whom she works as a maid, is not enthusiastic about her action because he is worried that the memorial will not remind the villagers of past horrors and suffering but disguise the human cost of war in rhetoric. As the memorial's advocates begin to sustain the day, flashbacks show how the woman's youngest son shot his captain, deserted the army, and came to die of fever while in his mother's care. The priest helped her as much as possible, yet he feels compelled to tell the authorities that her son was a deserter.


The Balad of Mamelouk
1982 · 1h 50m
country: Czechoslovakia
Mamluk is an unassuming, handsome young peasant who happens to have come along just in time to save the king from a fatal trap, and as a reward, the king offers him the amount of land he can mark off by walking around in one day but he must return to the starting point before sunset.


Lion of the Desert
1981 · 2h 53m
country: Libyan Arab Jamahiriya
Resistance leader Omar Mukhtar opposes Italian colonization before World War II. The brutal guerrilla war against Italian General Rodolfo Graziani and the Fascist forces of Benito Mussolini highlights the struggle for Libyan independence and the harsh tactics utilised by the colonisers.


L'assistente sociale tutto pepe...
1981 · 1h 26m
country: Italy
Nadia is a social worker who is trying to keep the residents of a local slum in line. Unfortunately she keeps neglecting her work and fantasizing about a life as a pop-star. When she falls for one of the residents in question, a small time crook called Bel Ami, she ends up an accomplice in a convoluted heist involving a holy Catholic relic.


Ring of Darkness
1979 · 1h 46m
country: United Kingdom
Once a Satanist who surrendered her soul and body to the devil himself, Carlotta Rhodes begins to regret her tryst with Lucifer when her teenage daughter, Daria, starts showing the evil influence of dear old Dad. Convinced that she can stop the devil's power on earth, Carlotta calls upon an exorcist for help.


Bloodline
1979 · 1h 56m
country: Germany
A pampered heiress inherits her father's pharmaceutical empire when he dies in a suspicious accident, and soon finds herself surrounded by ruthless board members and grasping family members who will seemingly stop at nothing to profit.


Christ Stopped at Eboli
1979 · 3h 40m
country: France
In the fascist Italy of 1935, a painter trained as a doctor is exiled to a remote region near Eboli. Over time, he learns to appreciate the beauty and wisdom of the peasants, and to overcome his isolation.


Iphigenia
1977 · 2h 7m
country: Greece
The Greek army is about to set sail to a great battle, but the winds refuse to blow. Their leader, King Agamemnon, seeks to provide better food, but accidentally slays a sacred deer. His punishment from the gods, the sacrifice of his daughter Iphigenia.


Blood Wedding
1977 · 1h 20m
country: Morocco
In a small village in southern Morocco, Amrouch cannot, because of his social position, marry the daughter of a wealthy farmer from the nearby village. Based on Federico Garica Lorca’s novel.


Moses the Lawgiver
1976 · 2h 21m
country: Italy
The epic story of Moses, who led the Israelites out of slavery, parted the Red Sea and received the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai. This is the edited-down version for theatrical release.


The Message
1976 · 2h 58m
country: Libyan Arab Jamahiriya
In sixth-century Mecca, Prophet Muhammad receives his first revelation from God as a messenger. Three years later, he's not alone in his quest and publicly declares his prophecy. Muhammad is fought by Abu Sufian and his wife Hind, rulers of Mecca. Muhammad's followers are hunted and tortured but he continues his calling.


Bambina
1974 · 1h 37m
country: Italy
In order to convince Raimonda, a wealthy noble woman, to finance his project for a holiday resort, Saverio gets engaged to Clotilde, her mentally-disturbed and sex-obsessed adolescent daughter. He plans to have her kidnapped and raped by an accomplice so she won't be a virgin anymore and he'll have an excuse to get out of the impending marriage. But what he doesn't plan is to fall in love with the girl...


The Battle of Sutjeska
1973 · 1h 57m
country: Yugoslavia
The headquarters of the Marshal Tito's Liberation Army are surrounded by Axis forces. The Partisans have no choice but to fight their way out of the encirclement and face the enemy on the plains of Sutjeska.


1931: Once Upon a Time in New York
1973 · 1h 28m
country: United States
In 1931, when the late American Prohibition major bosses have now divided the territory to exploit, the family of one of them - killed in a clash - decides to send half a million dollars in Sicily hidden in the body of the deceased.


Don't Torture a Duckling
1972 · 1h 45m
country: Italy
A reporter and a promiscuous young woman try to solve a series of child killings in a remote southern Italian town rife with superstition and a distrust of outsiders.


N.P. - The Secret
1972 · 1h 30m
country: Italy
An engineer invents a revolutionary machine capable of automating all industrial production, thereby eliminating the need for human labor. His groundbreaking innovation, intended to free humanity from work, instead leads to his abduction and brainwashing by unknown forces. He is then left to wander the city, stripped of his memories and identity.


The Murder of Julius Caesar
1972 · 30m
country: Mexico


Roma bene
1971 · 1h 34m
country: Germany
A parade of corrupt and sleazy characters in the high society of Rome.


Oasis of Fear
1971 · 1h 30m
country: Italy
Two young sexually free hippies, Dick and Ingrid, finance their travels by selling naked snaps of Ingrid until their plan is brought to an abrupt end by the Police. Forced on the run the two seek refuge at a seemingly empty isolated large villa. As it turns out the house is inhabited by the middle-aged Barbara who invites them in for some potential three-way hanky-panky that soon locks them into something far more twisted and chilling!


The Trojan Women
1971 · 1h 45m
country: Greece
In the aftermath of the Trojan Wars, Queen Hecuba takes stock of the defeated kingdom. Her son has been killed, and his widow, Andromache, is left to raise their son, Astyanax, alone. Hecuba's daughter, Cassandra, fears being enslaved by her Greek masters, while Helen of Troy risks being executed. Astyanax also becomes the focus of the Greeks' attention as the last male heir of the Trojan royal family.


Anne of the Thousand Days
1969 · 2h 25m
country: United Kingdom
Henry VIII of England discards his wife, Katharine of Aragon, who has failed to produce a male heir, in favor of the young and beautiful Anne Boleyn.


A Dream of Kings
1969 · 1h 47m
country: United States
A Greek American father of a dying boy decides to take his son to Greece to breathe the clean air of his ancestors, in an attempt to save the boy's life. However, money is a problem.


The Odyssey
1969 · 1h 50m
country: France
After fighting in the Trojan War, Odysseus spends years trying to return home to Ithaca. [Theatrical version of the 1968 mini-series.]


Z
1969 · 2h 2m
country: Algeria
A prominent politician is murdered during a demonstration. The government and army are trying to suppress the truth, but a tenacious magistrate is determined not to let them get away with it.


Behold Man - The Survivors
1969 · 1h 39m
country: Italy
Having survived a terrible nuclear war that destroyed the human race, a family of three persons, Jean, his wife Anna and Patrick, lives in a trailer by the sea.


The Brotherhood
1968 · 1h 36m
country: United States
The son of a powerful Mafia don comes home from his army service in Vietnam and wants to lead his own life, but family tradition, intrigues and powerplays involving his older brother dictate otherwise, and he finds himself being slowly drawn back into that world.


The Desperate Ones
1967 · 1h 44m
country: Spain
In 1941, two Polish brothers escape a Soviet gulag. Their only escape route is through the impossible mountains of Afghanistan and the KGB is on their tail.


Witness Out of Hell
1967 · 1h 23m
country: Germany
Leah Weiss, a Polish Jew, was first forced into prostitution at Auschwitz. Afterwards, she was victimized in medical experiments. Now, twenty years later, German war crimes prosecutors hope she will be their star witness. But can she stand up to the shame, the publicity, and the reliving of those experiences?


We Still Kill the Old Way
1967 · 1h 39m
country: Italy
A leftist professor wants the truth about two men killed during a hunting party; but the mafia, the Church and corrupt politicians don't want him to learn it.


Trap for the Assassin
1966 · 1h 45m
country: France
An industrialist is falsely accused of murdering one of his creditors and, because he cannot reveal that it was his mistress who gave him the money needed to pay the debt, he is sentenced to life in prison. He escapes, makes a fortune, and, years later, discovers the real culprit.


The Steps
1966 · 1h 27m
country: Greece
An artist returns to Santorini, where she spent her childhood, to face the ghosts of her past and her present.


Zorba the Greek
1964 · 2h 22m
country: Greece
An uptight English writer traveling to Crete on a matter of business finds his life changed forever when he meets the gregarious Alexis Zorba.


The Moon-Spinners
1964 · 1h 58m
country: United States
Young English girl Nikky and her aunt arrive at the Moon-Spinners, a hotel on Crete, to a less than enthusiastic welcome. The coolness of the owner is only out-done by the surliness of her brother Stratos, recently back from London. But then there is nice English lad Mark to make friends with, at least until Stratos and his pal take a shot at him one night. When Nikky helps him hide she finds the Greeks are after her too.


Electra
1962 · 1h 50m
country: Greece
Living in exile after the death of their father, the grown children of a murdered and usurped king converge to exact eye-for-an-eye revenge.


Antigone
1961 · 1h 33m
country: Greece
In Thebes in ancient Greece, King Oedipus kills his father and marries his mother Jocasta, having two sons - Eteocles and Polyneices - and two daughters - Ismene and Antigone. King Oedipus dies a beggar in the exile after gouging out his own eye, and Eteocle agrees to reign in Thebes in alternating years with Polynices. However, he refuses to resign after the first year and Polynieces raises an army and attacks Thebes, and they kill each other. The ruler of Thebes Creon decrees that Eleocles should have an honorable burial while the body of the traitor Polyneices should be left on the battlefield to be eaten by the jackals and vultures. However, Antigone, who was betrothed to Creon's surviving son Haemon, defies Creon's orders and buries her brother. When Creon is reported of the attitude of Antigone, he sentences her to be placed in a tomb alive. Antigone hangs herself in the tomb and Haemon tries to kill his father first and then he kills himself with his sword...


The Guns of Navarone
1961 · 2h 40m
country: United Kingdom
A team of allied saboteurs are assigned an impossible mission: infiltrate an impregnable Nazi-held island and destroy the two enormous long-range field guns that prevent the rescue of 2,000 trapped British soldiers.


The Lake of Sighs
1959 · 1h 22m
country: Greece
Ioannina, in the beginning of the 19th century. The whole Greece is under Turks. Ioannina is governed by the fierce and vulgar Ali Pasas. Ali’s eldest son, Muchtar, falls in love with a young Greek widow, Frosyni. The problem is, he’s married to the vindictive and cruel Chanife. And the muslim penalty for having an affair with a married man is death…


Bouboulina
1959 · 1h 24m
country: Greece
The life and action of Laskarina Bouboulina. Captain Lascarina decides to organize the revolution in Spetses and to participate herself, despite her double widowhood. In the struggle for the liberation of Greece, she gives all her property and fighting along with her lads.


Pssst ... girls!
1959 · 1h 19m
country: Unknown
Three poor friends hope to achieve something good in their lives. One day they meet three girls. They pretend to be rich and go out with them. When they learn the truth, the girls want to move away, but a rich Greek man from abroad, who is looking for a bride to marry, comes to Greece and decides to help the situation.


Tribute to a Bad Man
1956 · 1h 35m
country: United States
Jeremy Rodock is a tough horse rancher who strings up rustlers as soon as looks at them. Fresh out of Pennsylvania, Steve Miller finds it hard to get used to Rodock’s ways, although he takes an immediate shine to his Greek girl Jocasta.


The Missing Scientists
1954 · 45m
country: Germany
A group of nuclear scientists try to make sure top secret information about atomic weapons does not fall into the wrong hands.


Attila
1954 · 1h 19m
country: France
Attila, the leader of the barbarian Huns and called by the Romans "The Scourge of God", sweeps onto the Italian peninsula, defeating all of the armies of Rome, until he and his men reach the gates of the city itself.


Theodora, Slave Empress
1954 · 1h 28m
country: France
Teodora, a Roman courtesan and former slave girl, marries the Roman emperor Justinian and assumes the throne as Empress of Rome. But the divide between nobility and slave is too great. Teodora seeks justice for her people, and revolution and armed conflict erupt in both Byzantium and Rome.


Vortice
1953 · 1h 27m
country: Italy
Elena, after a date with his boyfriend Guido, comes home finding his father tried to kill himself with gas because he lost a lot of money due to some wrong investments.


The Man From Cairo
1953 · 1h 21m
country: Italy
"The Man from Cairo", a Michaeldavid production for distribution by Lippert, with Ray Enright the only credited director on the film print, finds Mike Canelli, the man from Cairo, nosing around Algiers with mystery surrounding the people he meets and the things he does and has done to him, all deriving from the war-time theft of $100,000,000 in gold which lies somewhere in the adjacent desert. People representing many nationalities and reasons are also seeking the gold. It boils down to a battle between Canelli and the original looter aboard a speeding train.


The Unfaithfuls
1953 · 1h 35m
country: Italy
A group of "respectable" people are all partly responsible for the suicide of a servant girl. They are pounced upon by a wily blackmailer, who knows that these people will pay dearly rather than inform on themselves or others.


Dead City
1951 · 1h 16m
country: Greece
A young painter returns to his hometown, Mystras, where he falls in love with the daughter of a family with whom his own family has a feud. The girl's father will kill her, thinking she is a man, since she had disguised herself as a man to save her lover.


Fallen Angels
1948 · 1h 24m
country: Greece
To help her sick mother, a girl is hired for what she believes to be a simple delivery service. That will cause her serious problems with her boyfriend and with justice.