Greece; Animation and Myth

Five years after the screening of Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937), a Greek cartoonist and self-taught
animator, Stamatis Polenakis (1908-1997) sketched and directed Duce recounts (6:49min, black & white), the first Greek animated
film. In 1946, brothers Giannis & Giorgos Rousopoulos produced the animated short About the Thunders! (5:00min, black
& white).
The birth of Greek television during the ‘60s encouraged the creation of animated puppet films for children leading up to the
founding of the first Greek animation production company “Aronis-Efthymiades”.
Nowadays Greek animation is an ever growing artistic and professional sector within the Greek creative economy, with many
notable studios, animation artists as well as events, such as Animasyros International Animation Festival + Agora, Athens
ANIMFEST, Thessaloniki Animation Festival and Chania Cartoon & Animation Festival.