Christos Solomos

Christos Solomos is an Actor, Presenter, Writer, Director, Producer, Historical Researcher, Translator. He studied Theater at Karolos Koun Theatre of Arts Drama School in Athens, at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London (RADA) and was trained in Butoh Theater and Stage Movement by Kazuo Ohno Sensei in Tokyo.

As an actor, he worked for many years in Theater ("Yerma" by Federico Garcia Lorca  - directed by Stavros Tsakiris, "The Opera of Shadows" by Nikos Mamagakis - directed by Yiannis Smaragdis, "The Misanthrope" by Moliere - directed by Angela Brouskou, "The Fastest Clock In The Universe" by Philip Ridley   -  directed by Michalis Ginos, "Tuko!Tuko! The Princess of The Lizard Moon" - written and directed by Anton Juan, "A Respectable Wedding" by Bertolt Brecht  - directed by Takis Tzamargias, "The Golden Boy" by Clifford Odets - directed by Vernon Hinkle, et al.), in Television ("Vice Squad" directed by Manousos Manousakis, "Anatomy of a Crime" directed by Panos Kokkinopoulos, et al.) and in Cinema ("Charioteer" directed by Alexis Damianos, "Monaxia Μou Οla" directed by Dimitris Panayiotatos, "Midsummer’s Night Dream" directed by Dimitris Athanitis, et al.).

By 1995 he turned his attention to filmmaking and founded Petra Film, an independent production company focusing on the genre of creative documentary. His first production, the feature-length cinematic documentary Meri Amen: A Quest for the Lost Tomb of Alexander (directed by Thomas Moschopoulos), a poetic and mythical quest for the remaining traces of Hellenism in the Orient, was based on his extensive historical research in Egypt and was honoured with the Hellenic National Award Best Documentary, was screened in many International Film Festivals and on TV channels both in Greece and abroad and won numerous international awards and distinctions. Since then, he has contributed as researcher, script writer, director or co-producer in Greek and European documentary productions or co-productions.

In 2000 he co-produced the feature-length fiction film Black Out (directed by Menelaos Karamangiolis) which received 5 Hellenic National Awards of Quality, 7 awards in international film festivals and was screened in numerous countries around the globe.

In 2003 he contributed as Researcher and Production Organizer in the BBC documentary series Talk Greek, on the Greek civilization and language and which was filmed all over Greece.

In 2006 he directed the video-art Sumo Kiss, for the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum, a look into westernized Japan through the ancient sport of Sumo.

In 2005 he directed for Syn Productions the documentary film Keratsini, on the historical and cultural identity of the area of Keratsini, Attica.

From 2007 to 2009, he travelled to 7 megacities (Sao Paolo, Moscow, New York, Tokyo, Mumbai, Mexico City, Cairo) filming and collecting archive material for his ongoing research The Days, on the human nature in the most-populated metropolitan centers of the planet.

In 2010 he travelled to the North African countries, recording for Unesco the customs and rituals of the nomadic tribes of the Sahara Desert.

In 2012 he directed the documentary Island of Saints for the series "Pilgrimages" of Greek National Television 3, focused on the Early-Christian culture in the Mediterranean area.

In 2013, in collaboration with the Cypriot archaeologist Stelios Perdikis, he recorded and documented the lootings and vandalisms made by the Turkish soldiers and archaeologists on the Ancient Greek and Byzantine monuments of occupied Cyprus during the Operation Attila in 1974, a recording which contributed to the international exposure and legal documentation at the United Nations of the organized antiquity-smuggling plan of the pseudostate. 

In 2015 he worked as Researcher and Production Organizer for Google SMB Films and for the British production companies BrightsideTV and Across the Pond.

From 2016 to 2018, together with a daring team of Greek and German historians, he recorded in interviews the oral history of the last remaining in-life Greek martyrs of Nazi's war crimes during the Occupation Period, for the digital library program of the Free University Berlin Memories of Occupation in Greece. The program was materialized in cooperation with the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and was funded by the Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Memory Responsibility and Future Foundation and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.

In 2018 he adapted into fiction screenplay the novel of the Israeli writer Shulamit Shapir Nevo Under the Stars of Andromeda, which is planned to be made a movie by 2023.

In 2019 he completed the writing of his theater play Operation Kalavryta 1943, a theatrical dramatization of the infamous Wehrmacht's operation which led to the holocaust of Kalavryta city during the December of 1943.  

In the winter of 2019, the documentary-theater play Martyrs of Athens opened in Athens in Theater Stathmos (directed by Manos Karatzogiannis), based on his research on the emotive history of Athens of the Occupation Period, as he has recorded it in his personal archive through numerous interviews and testimonies of Greek and German army members, survivors, victims' relatives, witnesses, partisans.

At the same time, he started the filming of his new documentary Shalom Bouzouki, a Greek-Israeli production on the phenomenon of the Greek music in Israel, based on the research of the distinguished anthropologists Vassiliki Yiakoumaki and Sissie Theodosiou and supported by Greek Film Center.

Since 2014 to date, he has been Member of the Preliminary Jury, Public Relations Manager and Presenter of the International Documentary Festival of Ierapetra, the 5-star international film festival which is held annually at Crete under the Artistic Direction of Eleni Vlassi. 

As a narrator, he has worked in many Greek and foreign documentary productions and as a translator he has translated numerous theatrical plays from English into Greek.