Summary
Stavros Xarchakos was honoured at the 67th Thessaloniki International Film Festival for music that helped define some of Greek cinema’s most memorable moments.
The tribute took place on Saturday, 7 November 2026, before a full audience at the Olympion. The composer, conductor and arranger could not attend because he was unwell. Festival artistic director Orestis Andreadakis announced that the honorary Golden Alexander would be presented to him in Athens.
A tribute evening without its guest of honour
Xarchakos sent a personal message expressing gratitude and his disappointment at being unable to share the evening with the audience. The crowd gave him a prolonged round of applause, and the Festival screened a short tribute video featuring excerpts from his film music.
Orestis Andreadakis and actress Themis Bazaka, a member of the Festival’s board, spoke on stage. Bazaka recalled the singing audition she had with Xarchakos while preparing for Rembetiko, and how that encounter formed part of her early film career.
Rembetiko and music as cinematic storytelling
The evening concluded with a screening of Costas Ferris’s Rembetiko (1983). Xarchakos composed original songs for the film that sound as though they belong to the older rebetiko tradition. His score won an award at the Thessaloniki festival, while Bazaka also received the Best Supporting Actress award for her performance.
Andreadakis recalled that Xarchakos’s first film work was the song “Ta dakrya mou einai kafta” for Dinos Dimopoulos’s To Taxidi (1962), when the composer was 23. He also highlighted Xarchakos’s ability to draw on jazz, blues and classical music to strengthen moving images.
The tribute formed part of the 67th Thessaloniki International Film Festival programme, running from 5 to 15 November with screenings, retrospectives and conversations with filmmakers.
What we think
When we remember a film scene, it is often the melody that comes back first. That is what makes Xarchakos’s work so interesting: the music does more than accompany actors. It helps establish the world, period and emotion of a film.
Rembetiko offers a useful lesson for filmmakers. Its songs were written specifically for the production, yet they feel as though they already belonged to the world on screen. That sense of authenticity is not achieved by applying a filter or adding an impressive soundtrack. It takes an understanding of the story and a close creative relationship between music and direction.
This is why screening the film was such a fitting way to mark his career. The contribution of a film composer is best experienced in the narrative for which the music was created.
