And the Oscar Goes to... Global Greek Alexander Payne! Μπράβο Αλέξανδρε!

Mom, this one's for you. Σ'άγαπώ πολύ

With a very sweet Σ' Αγαπώ Πολύ! (I love you very much) Alexander Payne (Alexander Constantine Papadopoulos) dedicated the Oscar he received for The Descendants, his 2nd Oscar, to his mother who was in the audience! We loved it!  Any mother would have loved to be in her place - bursting with pride and joy - let alone a Greek mother listening to her son thanking her and telling her he loves her in Greek on the stage at the Oscars!! It made all of us in the Global Greek World feel very proud of him. Almost as if we had won that Oscar ourselves! 

Congratulations Alexander!

 With the most beautiful words in the Greek language, you gave Greece, and every Greek around the world who heard you, a shot in the arm at this difficult moment! 

We are all very proud of you!

Mrs Payne looks on as her son dedicates his 2nd Oscar to her

Alexander Payne gives the acceptance speech 

while Nat Faxon and Jim Rash look on

 Angelina Jolie gives Alexander Payne 

his 2nd Oscar for the Descendants

In a brief but very warm acceptance speech, trying to speak over the laughs which erupted at the parody his fellow writer Jim Rash put on of Angelina Jolie's pose on the stage as she prepared to hand over the Oscar for the Best Adapted Screenplay for 2012 to them, Global Greek Alexander Payne received his 2nd Oscar last night at the 84th Academy Awards in Los Angeles. 

This is Jim and this is Nat. I’m Alexander. We bow to our fellow nominees. Help, stop the counter. We bow to our fellow nominees. We want to thank Fox Searchlight and producer Jim Burke for all their good works. We share this with George Clooney and the rest of the cast for interpreting our screenplay so generously. And we also share it in particular with Kaui Hart Hemmings, our beautiful Hawaiian flower for her novel. And on a brief personal note, if I may, my mother is here with me from Omaha and, hold the applause, and after watching the show a few years ago she made me promise that if I ever won another Oscar, I had to dedicate it to her just like Javier Bardem did with his mother. So Mom, this one’s for you  S'Agapo Poly. And thanks for letting me skip nursery school so we could go to the movies. Thanks a lot.

 


www.mediagate.gr - Σ' αγαπώ μαμά! από mediagate

Global Greeks at the Oscars: The Descendants - 6th Oscar Nomination for Alexander Payne

The 84th Academy Awards take place tonight in Los Angeles and this year all of us in the Global Greek World are proud to see one of our Global Greeks amongst the nominees once again ! 

Alexander Payne

We will all be hoping to see Alexander Payne, Greek American Director and Screenwriter and one of our Global Greek of the Year Nominees,  get his 2nd Oscar, this time for The Descendants with the inimitable George Clooney and a very talented Shailene Woodley. 

The Descendants has been nominated for 5 Oscars and is, like all Payne's films, about the complexities of life, death and family relations. In this case they challenge a man faced with losing his wife. When Elizabeth King is left comatose following an accident, her husband Matt finds himself thrust into the unfamiliar role of caregiver to their two daughters, while at the same time facing a difficult financial decision that may put him at odds with other family members....

Alexander Payne's success at the Golden Globes for The Descendants started the ball rolling for his 6th Oscar nomination.  It was wonderfu to see Alexander Payne and the rest of his Global Greek Dream Team, Jim Gianopulos and Phedon Papamichael, present when The Descendants opened Greece's Thessaloniki Film Festival in 2011. All three are board members of the Los Angeles Greek Film Festival (LAGFF). 

Jim Gianopulos

Source: LAGFF

 Phedon Papamichael 

Source: LAGFF

Payne's Ad Hominem Enterprises and Gianopulos' Fox Searchlight Pictures have already won the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture (Drama) for THE DESCENDANTS while Phedon Papamichael served as Director of Photography. 

The Descendants also won a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture (Drama) for George Clooney, whilst Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon & Jim Rash recently won Best Screenplay at the Independent Spirit Awards for the film!

We'll all be keeping our fingers crossed tonight! From all of us at Global Greek World we wish your latest film all the very best!

Καλή Επιτυχία, Αλέξανδρε!  

Good Luck, Alexander!

Today We Are ALL Greek! Σήμερα είμαστε ΟΛΟΙ 'Ελληνες! Nous sommes TOUS Grecs!

Today we are ALL Greek!

Today we are all standing peacefully in solidarity with Greece!

Today, around the world, EVERYBODY is standing in solidarity with Greece!

We are all standing behind and supporting our beloved Greece, a nation that has survived much worse over the course of her long history, and although we are confident that it will survive this challenge too, wherever we are in the world, we need to be united and strong; we need to show our love for our homeland; we need to realise that Greece needs us ALL, and especially our support.

Our support and solidarity is crucial at this moment. 

We all need to BE THERE for the land we know and love, the land that has given so much and inspired so many on all levels throughout the course of her history, ancient and modern.

We need to support the Greek people materially and financially - to help look after the weak who are fighting for their families, who have lost their income and homes and who have no alternative -  but we especially need to support the Greek people's efforts, by giving them as much moral support and encouragement as we can. Our back up, encouragement and support will be critical  in the difficult days ahead, to help us and our people, the Greek people, remain strong, to hold our heads up high and stay the course as essential life-saving reforms and structural changes are made but with justice and time frames that work - austerity without justice will never work.

We need to bring out the best in our people all over the world, so that united we can all look forward to a better and brighter future for our homeland - the country we love - Greece.

We need to stand with and behind Greece to REBUILD, REPOWER, REINVENT, RESTART...

UNITED we Greeks have shown that we can create magic - Greek magic- and we will   again!

YES, Greece, CAN...

All we are saying... just give Greece a chance...to prove it!

 

Inspired and motivating 

by Gerasimos Katevatis of Kandy Creative

YES, Greece CAN...Despite The Memoranda!

 

For all those who would like to see what exactly the two Memoranda between Greece and the Troika of her creditors - the EU, the ECB and the IMF, say, see below for the measures involved for the already much beleaguered people of Greece....

The people of Greece who are being called upon to make major sacrifices and suffer for the next few years, because, tragically, her political leaders failed to build a properly functioning state over the last 40 years that would also safeguard its citizens against the whims and voracious appetites of the world's vultures...

Greece needs to get its own house in order and make structural reforms, for its own sake, but the Troika's recipe isn't necessarily the right way to go. There are many voices, in Greece and around the world arguing against an imposed austerity seemingly without justice, incentives and hope for  future growth. An austerity designed primarily to ensure payback to banks and institutions who have made killings all these years. These protests are falling on deaf ears, however, as the grey-suited bureaucrats making decisions conveniently forget that there are real people suffering behind the numbers they see in front of them and the resultant brain drain, as the young and the talented leave Greece to pursue lives and careers elsewhere, is the last thing that Greece needs right now.

Whatever happens though, Greece is a nation that has survived much worse over the course of her long history, and although we are confident that it will survive this challenge too, wherever we are in the world, we need to be united and strong; we need to show our love for our homeland; we need to realise that Greece needs us ALL, and especially our support.

The support that we gave our homeland so generously and open-handedly whenever she was on top - in sport or culture, during the glorious Year of Greece in 2004, for example - is much more crucial now when her people are struggling.

We need to be there for the land we know and love.

We need to support the Greek people materially and financially - to help look after the weak who are fighting for their families, who have lost their income and homes and who have no alternative -  but we especially need to support the Greek people's efforts, by giving them as much moral support and encouragement as we can. Our back up, encouragement and support will be critical  in the difficult days ahead, to help our people remain strong, to stay the course and to hold their heads up high.

Source: Billy Candiloros - thanks!

We should never let anyone or anything make us ashamed to be Greek let alone the incompetent politicians and greedy, self-seeking individuals who have brought Greece to the state she is in today.

We need to bring out the best in our people all over the world, so that we can all look forward to a better and brighter future for our homeland - the country we love - Greece.

We need to stand behind the people of Greece so that they can REBUILD, REPOWER, REINVENT, RESTART...

UNITED we Greeks have shown that we can create magic - Greek magic- and we will   again!

YES, Greece, CAN!

Greece—Memorandum of Understanding on Specific Economic Policy Conditionality, 9 Feb 2012
 Greece—Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies, 9 Feb 2012 

Dedicated To the Troika: From Greece with .... Humour, Black Humour

 From the pen of the wonderful Kostas Mitropoulos 
in Greek daily newspaper,Ta Nea 

Humour with a bite

Troika IMF etc, in the helicopter up above:  Decide Mr Mitso         

Mr Mitso ( the ordinary Greek Citizen, barefoot, caught between a bush of prickly cactuses labelled Staying in the Euro and a cliff precipice labelled Return to the Drachma):  

I would like an advance for some shoes, even if they are jandals

Today is an important day for Greece and only the future will tell us whether it is a positive or a negative one in the recent history of Greece, so we decided to mark it with humour... albeit black!

...and because the Troikans seem to be obsessed with the 13th and 14th Salaries in the private sector, not sure why, and Greece's political leaders are rejoicing that they have succeeded in saving these, despite the fact that, tragically, their concessions meant a lot more purchasing power was lost for the people of Greece and especially the lower income and pension earners,  we thought we would add this special tribute from our friends at Radio Arvyla...

We saved the 13th&14th Salary... Glory to us

P.S.  Dear Troika, Don't forget to have it translated...otherwise it will be all Greek to you!