Mihalis Cacoyannis's Stella (1955) screens at The Garden Cinema on Thursday 10 September 2026, introduced by the former judge and human-rights advocate Betty Iliadou. Sold out.
Michael Cacoyannis was born in Limassol in 1921, when Cyprus was British, and was sent to London at eighteen to become a lawyer. He qualified, took a job with the British external broadcasting service and ran its new Cyprus desk, failed to find directing work in the British film industry, and moved to Athens in 1952 to try the Greek one instead. His first film came the year after. Stella, his third, made in 1955, is the one many Greeks name first.
It is the story of an Athens nightclub singer who will not bend to the moral arithmetic of the decade she is living in, and it brought three careers together at once. Melina Mercouri was making her screen debut; Manos Hadjidakis wrote the music five years before Never on Sunday; Cacoyannis went on to five Academy Award nominations. Greek critics rejected the film on release and it is now counted among the five greatest the country has made.
The Garden Cinema screens it on Thursday 10 September 2026 at eight, opening the autumn half of its Greek Salad strand, introduced by the former judge and human rights advocate Betty Iliadou. The cinema opened on Parker Street in 2022 with three screens and two art deco bars. The screening is sold out and members can join the waiting list.