Cinema

The arrival of summer in Athens is something like an event: the high temperatures and the sweet climate just won’t let you stay at home. One of the most popular summer activities of the Athenians, since the early ’50s, is the open-air cinema.

While for the rest of the world, summer is the blockbuster release season, for Athens, cinema follows the lazy summer pace: the warm summer nights, you watch a movie under the starry sky, drinking your ice cold beer.

One of these open-air cinemas is “Thisseion”. “Thisseion” is located 3 minutes away from the Thisseio train station. My personal favorite is to walk down Dionysiou Aeropagitou street, around the Acropolis hill and end up in “Thisseion” to watch a movie under the stars. Maybe the sound quality is not the best (it’s open-air!) and the screen is not digital 3D, but the quality of the projection is more than enough for a relaxed movie night.

Especially “Thisseion”, except the in-the-season movies, shows classic movies from the ’50s and ’60s, such as Hitchckok’s “Vertigo” and Wyler’s “Roman Holiday”. What is better than watching these movies in a cinema as old as the movies themselves, in a warm summer night in the city?

Latest News: Thisseion Cinema is featured as the Top 10 Open Air Cinema of the World by CNN! See the article here! We wrote it first

Irida is the cultural association of the Athenian University students.

Here everyone, student or not, can take part in seminars about everything connected to the art of cinematography. But besides all the cultural overload you will find in the building, you will also come across the ultimate (in my opinion) cinema: Irida.

Almost everyday you have the chance to watch cult-movies that otherwise you would probably not have the chance to see in the big screen, for free. Check out the website of the association for information on the program. It is updated weekly.

Tip: The parties they organize from time to time are not bad either!

Call it a cinema, call it a bar. I for myself can not really decide what it is, since I use it as both.

It is located in a street that is mostly known for its sex-related business while Mikrokosmos is mostly known for its sexy-business. Film festivals of every kind take place during the year while the normal selection of the films featured in this cinema are of the best kind and from all over the world. But as I said, there is also the bar!

Every cinema has its own little canteen where you can buy a beer to sip during the film. Well, here you can do that and more. If you happen to make the great mistake of drinking one or two or even three drinks before entering the screen-room you might even forget that you actually came to watch a film.

I’ve spent hours laughing dead to the endless jokes of the owner and his wife. While sitting at the bar staring at the Tom Waits wallpaper in the back, I sometimes even forget I want to go home, but then yeah reality strikes back as always, and off you go!