User:Athena.xenidou

An accomplished acting coach and award-winning director and producer in theatre, film and television with 18 years of experience in film and stage productions from inception to completion. Experience in teaching, acting, directing and producing for film and theatre.

Her first feature film, Unwitnessed Memories (2000) won the Gold Special Jury Award at the Houston International Film Festival and Best Documentary at the Film Festival in Cyprus. Unwitnessed Memories was an Official Selection and received Special Mentions at festivals around the world, such as the Int’l Human Rights Film Festival in Prague, the Int’l Festival of Visual Arts in Hungary, the Thessaloniki International Film Festival in Greece, Viewpoint Int’l Documentary Film Festival in Belgium and the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam and was an International Emmy Awards semi-finalist. In 2002, Xenidou accepted an offer from Fremantle SA and MEGA TV in Athens, Greece. She directed two seasons of Survivor, two seasons of The Farm and The Celebrity Farm, popular shows with the highest ratings in Greek television history. Xenidou was a member of the jury for the International Emmy Awards from 2001 to 2006. In 2004 she was selected by the European Union and the Cyprus Ministry of Education and Culture, to represent Cypriot filmmakers at the Cannes Film Festival. She is the co-founder of XMAS Productions, a company aiming at producing quality entertainment for local and international distribution. Xenidou produced and directed commercials, music videos, plays such as The Vagina Monologues (3-city tour in Cyprus) and After Miss Julie (5-city tour in Cyprus and a successful run in Greece) and The Good Body. She has directed plays such as, The Shadow Box (2007), The Vagina Monologues (2009), Touch and Go (2010), I Hate Hamlet (2011), After Miss Julie (2012) and The Good Body (2013). She is now in production for The Stone at the National Theatre of Cyprus.