Vrasidas Karalis is Associate Professor in Modern Greek Studies at the University of Sydney, Australia. He has published extensively on Greek culture, history and art. He is the editor of the Journal of Modern Greek Studies (Australia and New Zealand). In the area of film studies he has published on Theo Angelopoulos, Sergei Eisenstein and Alfred Hitchcock.

The history of Greek cinema is a rather obscure and unexamined affair. Greek cinema started slowly and then collapsed; for several years it struggled to reinvent itself, produced its first mature works, then collapsed completely and almost vanished. Because of such a complex historical trajectory no comprehensive survey of the development of Greek cinema has been written in English. This book is the first to explore its development and the contexts that defined it by focusing on its main films, personalities and theoretical discussions.

A History of Greek Cinema focuses on the early decades and the attempts to establish a "national" cinema useful to social cohesion and national identity. It also analyses the problems and the dilemmas that many Greek directors faced in order to establish a distinct Greek cinema language and presents the various stages of development throughout the background of the turbulent political history of the country. The book combines historical analysis and discussions about cinematic form in to construct a narrative history about Greek cinematic successes and failures.

Introduction: Theoretical framework, debates and historical periodisation
Chapter 1: Establishing the Cinematic Gaze: 1905-1945
Chapter 2: Searching for a Visual Metaphor: 1945-1970
Chapter 3: The Formalist Moment: The Inward Gaze: 1971-1995
Chapter 4: The Polyphony of the Decentered Gaze: The Other as a Cultural Hero: 1995-2010
Chapter 5: Epilogue
Appendix 1: Music Scores in Greek Movies
Appendix 2: On Smoking in Greek Movies
Appendix 3: Superstars in Greek Cinema