The Favourite lives up to its name at European cinema's night of nights, wins 8 awards

The Favourite certainly lived up to its name at this year’s European Film Awards.

It was the clear winner at the Berlin ceremony, picking up a total of eight awards, including Best Film and Best Director for Yorgos Lanthimos.

Its Oscar-winning star Olivia Colman was unable to attend because of filming commitments, but co-producer Andrew Lowe addressed the audience on behalf of the crew.

Lowe paid a heartfelt tribute to the director, who beat some of cinema’s great masters to scoop the award.

Roman Polanski and Marco Bellocchio, two other favourites, came home empty-handed.

"I'd like to say a special thank you to Yorgos Lanthimos, our friend and leader on this great and epic voyage we have all shared,” Lowe told the Berlin crowd. “It's been a great honour for us tonight to be included among so many great nominees in this show."

Spyros Gianniotis to be inducted into International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame in 2020

The International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame announced on Saturday that Greek swimmer Spyros Gianniotis will be inducted into the Swimming Hall of Fame in 2020.

Gianniotis will become the second Greek swimmer to be a member of the Hall of Fame, after Jason Zirganos, who was honored back in 1971.

Gianniotis has competed in every Olympic Marathon event since 2008.

In the 2008 Beijing Olympics, he came in 16th place. In the 2012 London Olympics, he finished in the 4th place, when he missed the bronze medal by only five seconds.

In 2016 during the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, he finished second, winning the silver medal.

Citizenship awarded to migrant fishermen who rescued Greeks from devastating July fires

Greece has awarded citizenship to three migrant fishermen - two Egyptians and an Albanian - who rescued Greeks from a devastating fire near Athens last July.

At a ceremony the Greek President, Prokopis Pavlopoulos, thanked the fishermen for showing "solidarity and humanity" by rescuing dozens of people.

"You are now European citizens too, and so you can teach all our partners who don't realise the values of Europe, to do what they ought to do," he said.

The wildfire killed at least 90 people.

Fanned by strong winds, the inferno engulfed part of the Attica Peninsula, with the resort town of Mati among the worst-hit areas. Eyewitnesses said that hundreds of people were forced into the sea as the flames approached, but others were trapped near the coast.

Stamatis Krimigis Earns Top Honor from International Academy of Astronautics

The International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) has presented its premier honor — the von Karman Award — to Stamatis 'Tom' Krimigis, eminent space scientist and head emeritus of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland.

Named for aerodynamics pioneer Theodore von Karman, founder and first president of the IAA, the annual award recognizes outstanding lifetime scientific achievement. In presenting the award on Sept. 24 during its annual Academy Day celebration in Adelaide, Australia, the IAA cited Krimigis for his leadership and scholarship in the space sciences and astronautics, including his discovery and promotion of the physics of energetic particles throughout the solar system and into near-interstellar space; his development of scientific instruments to explore the environments where those particles exist; and his articulation and application of policy-shifting paradigms in robotic space exploration that led to fundamental advances across astronautics.

Krimigis is the only scientist in the world to lead or participate in space physics experiments on all nine classical planets. He has served as a principal investigator on five NASA missions — including the legendary Voyagers and the Cassini Saturn orbiter — and as a co-investigator on many others.

Greek legend Nick Galis joins Hall of Fame (KaliEllada tribute)

He is Nick Galis to some and Nikos Galis to millions of others. He is the celebrated Greek hero who, almost single-handedly, changed the course of Greek basketball, turning it into a national sport. He’s also a Jersey kid and Boston Celtics draft pick who just entered the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame thanks to the International committee.

Galis’ first sport was actually boxing, but his mother soon put the clamps on his burgeoning career. Her horror at seeing her son come home every day with a new facial injury led to Galis taking up basketball and in 1970 began to play at Union Hill High School.

Greek women's basketball team take gold at Deaflympics!

For the first time ever the women's deaf Greek basketball team has won gold at the Deaf Olympics!

After winning the European Championship last year in Thessaloniki, the women's deaf national team added another gold medal to their collection after beating Lithuania 67-50 in the final of the Deaflympics.

The match was quite tense until the end of the third period when the score was just 39-38 for Greece. At that point, however, the athletes of coach Zerva made the biggest push of the game and outscored the Lithuanian team 28-12 to win the historic match.

June 8-11: Hydra island pays homage to Leonard Cohen

The Municipality of Hydra will name a street after Leonard Cohen, the famous Canadian singer, who used to have a house on the Greek islands in the Saronic Gulf.

Organizing a two-day event to commemorate the poet who loved the island,  the municipality will also reveal a stone bench that has been donated by the International Forum of the Friends of Leonard Cohen.

The street where Cohen had his house will receive his name.

A music concert by a local group dedicated to the works is scheduled for Saturday, June 10th 2017, at the port of the island.

On the same weekend, June 8/9-11 2017, there is Meetup scheduled on Hydra with Cohenites from all over the world.

Leonard Cohen bought the 19th century village house in summer 1960 for 1,500 US Dollar using some money inherited by his grand mother. He said once, “this was the smartest decision of my life.”

Acropolis Museum and Benaki among 41 to visit 'before you die'

The Telegraph recently published its list of 41 incredible museums to visit before you die and included two of Greece's finest museums in its list!

New Acropolis Museum 

Inaugurated in June 2009, this light, airy glass-and-concrete building was designed by Swiss architect Bernard Tschumi. Archaic and classical finds from the Acropolis site are displayed here – proud statues of the ancients and life-like stone carvings of animals. The top floor is devoted to the marble frieze that once ran around the top of the Parthenon.

Greek filmmakers Matziaraki, Filippou and Lanthimos headed to the 2017 Oscars! (videos)

Yorgos Lanthimos’ dystopian drama “The Lobster,” co-written with Efthymis Filippou, was nominated on Tuesday in the Best Original Screenplay category of the 89th Oscars, making it the second time the 43-year-old filmmaker looks forward to bringing home one of the coveted gold statuettes.

The award-winning filmmaker is joined in the ranks of Oscar hopefuls by another Greek, Daphne Matziaraki, whose “4.1 Miles” was selected for the Best Short Documentary category.

“The Lobster” stars Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz as two people looking for love in a world where you are turned into an animal if you fail to make a romantic attachment.

Watch Greek ‘Kings of Fireworks’ Take First Prize With Jaw-Dropping Show (video)

Pavlos and Philippos Nanos have created the jaw-dropping firework show, “Explosion,” that recently lit up the skies over Cincinnati.

The show took place at the International Fireworks Competition where the two took first place.

Pavlos told ANA-MPA that winning the competition was “a great pleasure and honor to obtain an international distinction in art that we love.”

“Some Greeks from Ohio came to congratulate us personally and meet us after our victory,” he said.

Violinist Leonidas Kavakos wins Léonie Sonning Music Prize 2017

Violinist Leonidas Kavakos has been named the winner of the Léonie Sonning Music Prize 2017, worth €100,000.

The award is Denmark’s highest musical honour and has been given annually to an internationally recognised composer, instrumentalist, conductor or singer since 1959.

The prize will be awarded to Kavakos at a special concert on 12 January 2017 – part of a mini-festival in Copenhagen during which the violinist will give a number of performances and masterclasses.

Greece named best country in the world by Condé Nast Traveller

Readers of the popular and highly regarded Condé Nast Traveller UK magazine have just voted Greece as the best country in the world to visit in the 2016 edition of the Readers’ Travel Awards.

The current refugee and economic crisis in Greece has not deterred jet setters from making their way to the Mediterranean- with tourists well aware of the fact that Greece is still at the top when it comes to guaranteed warm weather, pristine sea water, breathtaking sunsets and delicious cuisine.

The Peloponnese in Greece is the best place in Europe to visit in 2016, says Lonely Planet

Travel guide publisher Lonely Planet has released its annual list of the best places to visit in Europe, this year opting for a mix of the usual suspects (Venice, the Dordogne) and a scattering of off-the-beaten track places such as the Dutch island of Texel.

Topping the list is the the Peloponnese, a region often overlooked by travellers to Greece, who tend to visit the islands or build a sightseeing trip around Athens' iconic Acropolis.

Two Athens Eateries Among 31 Places to 'Eat at Before You Die'

An Exarchia eatery where waiters invariably forget some part of an order and a restaurant in Metaxourgeio where no dish ever exceeds 7 euros are among "31 places around the world you should eat at before you die," according to BuzzFeed. The popular news and entertainment website recently asked a group of professional globetrotters to share their favorite culinary destinations around the world.

Greeks and the Oscars!

The Academy Awards often had Greek color. Greeks and people of Greek origin have always represented the Greek spirit in cinema’s biggest celebration.

This year alone, Greek Australian George Miller is nominated for the furious Mad Max: Fury Road.

Angelos Tzortzinis: TIME Picks the Best Wire Photographer of 2015

Wire photographers are at the forefront of the news. They’re the first ones on the scene, ready to drop everything in an instant when news breaks. When eight men unleashed a series of deadly terror attacks on Paris in the late hours of Nov. 13, the photographers working for Agence France-Presse, Associated Press and Reuters, among other wire services, sprang into action without hesitation.

Their names are often unknown – hidden in small print – but their photographs have reached audiences around the world, on the front pages of hundreds of newspapers and magazines.

Antetokounmpo Named NBA's Eastern Conference Player of the Week!

The NBA announced today that Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo has been named Eastern Conference Player of the Week for games played Feb. 2-8. The award is the first of Antetokounmpo’s career.

Greek businesswoman named Manager of the Year 2014 by TUV Nord

She has been in the vanguard of the German business world for several years now and is a paradigm for the Greek diaspora.

Dr Virginia Green (nee Virginia Giovanoudi), founder and managing director of ENCOS, was named Manager of the Year for 2014 by TUV Nord, a group of multinationals with 10,000 workers in 70 countries which provides security and certification services.

Green emigrated to Germany from the northern Greek border town of Didymoteicho at the age of 18 and studied chemical technology at the University of Dortmund. She took her first professional steps at the Esso petroleum company before embarking on a PhD while a mother of two. After years of working as a top-flight executive at various firms, Green decided to go it alone.

Greek App ‘Togethera’ In Apple’s Top 10

A Greek software developer’s idea has reached Apple’s top ten list of best applications.

The application, named “Togethera,” launched by Sokrates Papafloratos who lives in London, UK, was picked among new applications proposed by developers from 116 different countries.

Papafloratos spoke to Greek television noting that his idea was generated by his own need to share photos and videos with his family quickly, easily and without any hacking danger.

Celtic fan Jay Beatty invited to Greece for award

Jay Beatty, the little Celtic fan who became an internet hit when he was seen on social media sites cheering on his hero Georgios Samaras in the World Cup, has been invited to Greece to pick up a top sports award.

Jay - who has Down’s syndrome - travelled from his home in County Armagh, Northern Ireland to watch the striker as he played his final game for the club at the end of last season and Samaras was delighted to have him there cheering him on.