The twenty-eighth Cannes Film Festival in 1975 was marked by the enthusiastic reception of a film that did not officially represent Greece, the country of its production. The right-wing government of the time refused to nominate it because it considered the leftist portrayal of modern national history offensive. Yet a Greek filmmaker and his crew managed to smuggle a copy of this film and show it as part of Pierre-Henri Deleau's renowned programme, the Directors’ Fortnight. The filmmaker was Theo Angelopoulos and the film Ο Θίασος (The Travelling Players, 1975). While the organisers of the festival were trying to find ways to sidestep the rules stipulating that only national commissions could be awarded festival prizes, by May 20, 1975 this 230-minute film had enjoyed its fourth screening in Cannes. Deleau's anecdote typifies the passionate response of the cinéphile community:

Eventually, the Cannes Film Festival broke its own rules, and The Travelling Players received the FIPRESCI Grand Prix. The film's storyline follows a group of actors who travel in Greece during the turbulent years 1939–1952, so as to perform a traditional bucolic drama, Golfo. Their performances are routinely interrupted by the major traumatic events of Greek history: the Metaxas dictatorship in the 1930s, the Italian invasion in 1940, the German occupation, the Greek Civil War, and the years after the defeat of the Left in the Civil War.