Soulis Georgiades


Soulis Georgiades was a Greek film producer and director.

Early life and family

Georgiades was born in Thessaloniki, Greece in 1934 to Dimitri and Maria Georgiades. His father was from Rapsani and his mother was from Thessaloniki. As a child, Georgiades was interested in cinema and organised small shows on his own. After finishing his education in Thessaloniki, he attended the Institute for the Study of Cinematography in Paris, where he studied with Costa-Gavras, Dimitri Kollatos, Vassilis Vassilikos, and Dimitris Makris. He finished his coursework in 1956.

Career

Georgiades worked as a commercial director for a number of advertisements, including for clients Fratelli Fabbri Editori and IMEC. In 1962, he founded the Art Film Production Company in Milan; his later advertisements were produced through here. He was the first to center Milva in an advertisement early in her career. In 1965, Minister George Mpakatselos asked him to move to Athens to help establish Greek public television. The following year, he founded his second company, General Film Production, which closed in 1979. From there, he founded DEK, Ltd., which offered video cassette duplication services. In 1976, he directed a twelve-film documentary series called Our National Heritage. In the mid-1980s, he acquired the studios of Finos Film, which included two sound stages.
In 1988, he acquired a hotel and restaurant with the intending to integrate several foreign productions that made use of facilities for audio-visual soundstage. Throughout his career, he directed and produced tourist films for the company Greeks for Tourism. Georgiades was also a friend and collaborator of Walter Chiari.
He was a member of the Hellenic Union of Directors in 1969 and sat on the prize and admissions committees for the Thessaloniki International Film Festival in 1979 and 1980. He sat on the Committee of the Ministry of Hellenic Industry for the development of cinematography in 1980 and 1981. He was also a member of the Greek Association of Audiovisual Producers and remained on its board of directors until 1995.

Personal life

In addition to films, Georgiades enjoyed cooking and Italian cuisine. In 1957, he met Maria Bianconi, daughter of painter Fulvio Bianconi; the couple were married the following year in Milan and had two sons, Dimitri and Piero. They separated in 1971 and he remarried in 1985. He suffered a stroke in 1989 and had a bypass operation. He died of a heart attack in Athens on 24 January 1997.

Awards and honours