Theodoros Angelopoulos was born in Athens on 27 April 1935 . During the Greek Civil War , his father was taken hostage and returned when Angelopoulos was 9 years old ; according to the director , the absence of his father and looking for him among the dead bodies had a great impact on his cinematography . He studied law at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens , but after his military service went to Paris to attend the Sorbonne . He soon dropped out to study film at the Institut des hautes études cinématographiques ( IDHEC ) before returning to Greece . There , he worked as a journalist and film critic . Angelopoulos began making films after the 1967 coup that began the Greek military dictatorship known as the Regime of the Colonels . He made his first short film in 1968 and in the 1970s he began making a series of political feature films about modern Greece : '' Days of ' 36 '' ( '' Meres Tou 36 '' , 1972 ) , '' The Travelling Players '' ( '' O Thiassos '' , 1975 ) and '' The Hunters '' ( '' I Kynighoi '' , 1977 ) . In 1978 , he was a member of the jury at the 28th Berlin International Film Festival
28th Berlin International Film Festival
28th Berlin International Film Festival
Theo Angelopoulos