Dimitri Vorris Set to Direct “Land of The Angels”

Independent production company Metaphor Entertainment, LLC today announced plans to produce “Land of The Angels,” a film depicting the termination of Salonica, Greece’s Sephardic Jewish population and the Sonderkommando uprising at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, in which 135 Salonica Jews participated. Having optioned the rights to Holocaust survivor Heinz Salvatore Kounio’s A Liter of Soup and Sixty Grams of Bread, The Diary of Inmate 109565 (Sephardic House & Bloch), which documents the seldom-told story of the Greek Jews who perished in the Holocaust, producer-director Dimitri Vorris is aiming to begin production on the film in Spring 2011. The screenplay was co-written by Vorris and longtime collaborator Michael Kokkinaris. Steven B. Bowman, respected Professor of Judaic Studies at the University of Cincinnati and author of The Agony of Greek Jews 1940-1945, will be a technical advisor on the film.

It is rumored Greek-American Actress, Katerina N Gagkas (Tony Scott’s, The Taking of Pelham 123) will be portraying one of the tragic female “angels” of the story.

In addition, “The Land of The Angels” cast includes Aussie-Greek actor Michael Angels along with other American and European actors. The full cast will be announced at the Cannes Film Festival in May.

“This is one of the most heroic pages of humankind history. The world forgets not only that

Sephardic Greek Jewry suffered during the Holocaust too, but that Greek Jews were brave enough to revolt and fight under the most hopeless circumstances. These historical events have striking similarities with Leonidas and the 300 Spartans fighting the Battle at Theromylae. The major difference is that, in this film, you don’t have an elite army fighting an Empire, but imprisoned, entrapped, everyday people in a termination camp. They are hungry, tortured, abused, sick, ailing, armed only with an ingenious plot and self-made guns, against the Empire of the Third Reich. They are performing the ultimate sacrifice for their fellow man and woman,” said Vorris.

“I am delighted to be collaborating with Dimitri in a film presentation of an important, yet neglected, chapter in the millennial story of Greek Jews, namely their heroism and tragedy during World War II,” said Professor Bowman.

Added Kounio, one of the few Holocaust survivors from Salonica, who lived to tell his story in his memoir, A Liter of Soup and Sixty Grams of Bread: “I am honored that this book was the inspiration for Dimitri Vorris’s film.”

“Sadly, the telling of the story of the Greek Jews has become particularly necessary and timely, as Crete’s historic Etz Hayyim synagogue was vandalized by anti-Semitic arsonists twice in January 2010. My hope, in making this film, is to help fight the breeding of such anti-Semitism by reminding people how much we have in common,” said Vorris.

Salonica, now Greece’s second largest city, was once called “The Mother of Israel” because of its prosperous and progressive Jewish community of approximately 70,000, a population that dwindled down to under 1,000 after the Holocaust.

About the director Dimitri Vorris

Writer-director Dimitri Vorris has directed five short-length features: “Jump Cut,””Claudia’s Best Friend” and “Ancient Greek’s Symposium Parts 1-3.” Part 3 of the Symposium series had a record 60 prints distributed by Village Roadshow in Greece and was seen by over 1,700,000 moviegoers. Vorris also produced and directed the animated feature “Socrates: Lost in Olympia” in 2008 and currently has five feature films in development, including indie thriller “NA4U” starring Costas Mandylor (“SAW’), Jeff Fahey (“LOST”) and Sarah M. Blessing, which starts principal photography in New York in May. (Some credits not contractual).