Deserted Land: The audience was thrilled by the avant premiere of the new ERT series at the 64th Thessaloniki Film Festival

The avant premiere of the first two episodes of ERT Erimi Chora’s new series at the Agora Series section of the 64th Thessaloniki Film Festival turned into a riveting experience for the audience.

The “Tonia Marketaki” hall was full of people who rushed to watch the first fiction series of ERT produced by ERTFLIX and, as it turned out, the impressions it left were very positive.

Present were the president of ERT Konstantinos Zoulas, the general program director of ERT Konstantinos Papavasiliou, the general director of ERT3 Filios Stagos, the director of Corporate Communications of ERT Dora Chiraki, the artistic director and the president of the Board of Directors. of the Thessaloniki Film Festival Orestis Andreadakis and Ria Thanoulis respectively, the director of the series Giorgos Gikapeppas and the actors Danai Skiadis, Giorgos Karamichos, Stefania Marola and Stelios Xanthoudakis.

The president of ERT, Konstantinos Zoulas, after thanking the official guests, as well as the audience for their presence at the screening, referred to ERT’s digital platform which, as he confessed, treats her as his own child, as he was her godfather.

He informed that ERTFLIX, which a few days ago completed 3.5 years of life, but also recently started its journey around the world, through its international version, is a creation of the people of ERT, who set up the platform without any external help.

“ERTFLIX, he emphasized, did nothing more than respond to the new international viewing trend that gives citizens the opportunity to watch the program they want, not only at the time they want but also from any device they want.”

The facts he quoted demonstrate the great success and penetration he has with the public.

Last October, Mr. Zoulas revealed, ERTFLIX broke all previous traffic records by receiving more than 12 million visits in just one month. This figure corresponds to more than 400,000 views every day and of these, 30% of the views of ERT’s fiction series are now from mobile phones and an additional 28% from computers and tablets.

This new way of viewing through the platform, explained the president of ERT, also determined the collaboration with Giorgos Gikapappa.

“Giorgos directed, for ERT, a huge success last year, “The bracelet of fire”. We had the idea to show this series for a few days first on ERTFLIX and then on TV, something that had never been done before in Greece. Contrary to the actors who believed that in this way we are undermining her, George was excited by this idea. Because, he also foresaw that precisely this choice of ours would make a decisive contribution to its success. In just one week, the eight episodes had been watched by more than a million viewers, which became her ideal multipliers, while note that today this number has more than doubled, as “The bracelet of fire” now counts 2.6 million views”.

Referring to the new series of ERT “Desert Country”, directed by Giorgos Gikapeppas, he characteristically said that “I will forever remember the way he narrated to me how he imagines the scenes of this series, I felt as if I was already seeing it in front of me ».

This was also the reason why he made the decision for “Desert Land” to be the first production of ERTFLIX and he estimated that this series will not stay only within the borders of Greece.

After the end of the screening, the director Giorgos Gikapepas, as well as the actors who were present, talked to the audience who watched with great interest and what the actors had to say about the series.

Speaking about “Desert Land” Giorgos Gikapepas said that it is a series “that obeys a format that I love, in a kind of urgency that forces the heroes to act against a criticality. In other words, an event is coming, which you don’t have time to think about. In this process you operate subconsciously, so things arise which often betray many aspects of your character. That’s what I had to find with the actors. What is it that betrays them, what is their past and how do they enter this story to manage the issue they have. We had to work on all of this. Thank God, I have actors who loved this job and gave their best,” concluded the director.