In Part 2 of an interview with Nicholas Franghias of Ember Frames, we follow the continued journey of the award-winning filmmaker.<\/em><\/p>\n Recall that on the eve of Ember Frames\u2019 one-year anniversary, I had the opportunity to speak to its founder, Award-winning Filmmaker Nicholas Franghias<\/a>, about his life and work. In Part 1, we revealed his journey to storytelling, with all its twists and turns. This time, we\u2019ll look at his early work, which garnered him awards, presented challenges, and led him to a whole new world.<\/p>\n One might think that with Nicholas\u2019 collective experiences and time honing his craft that he sailed right into making films and winning awards. Not exactly. But every experience along the way has informed his work and path forward.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I started out 35 years ago, Greece lacked the film infrastructure and outfacing networks it has today,\u201d he explained. So from 1989-2006, he worked in advertising as an agency producer, copywriter, and director. \u201cI created numerous rip-o-matics and directed select commercials and corporate projects.\u201d<\/p>\n Working at major agency added valuable knowledge to his creative toolbox. He described the work as \u201cadjacent to filmmaking\u201d and \u201ca master class\u201d. During this time, he continued to create and develop his own work.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n In 1990, the Greek Film Center, Greece\u2019s state film agency, selected his short film script 639+1 NIGHTS for funding. With unpaid leave from the agency to make the film, he wrote, produced, and directed the half-hour drama. Inspired by Nicholas\u2019 military service, the story follows a young man on night guard duty on a remote island, on the eve of war. As listens to news bulletins and music from his transistor, he begins picking up strange frequencies, and the veil between the physical and the spiritual grows thin. The night drifts between reality, memory, and fantasy, as childhood friends, buried moments, and the ghosts of his loved ones appear, awakening him to the invisible battle behind the war.<\/p>\n \u201cThis early hands-on experience was valuable,\u201d he said. \u201cThe Greek Film Center\u2019s contribution supported the project meaningfully, and I covered the remaining budget through my next two years of advertising work.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n During this time, several of Nicholas\u2019 agency collaborations earned recognition at the annual Greek Advertising Creativity Festivals and advanced to Cannes Lions, the world\u2019s most prestigious event for creative communications. But after five years of juggling his agency work and his creative passions, he burned out. \u201cThe relentless, constant motion left me with no peace of mind to believe I\u2019d ever write or develop another film.\u201d<\/p>\n Something brought him back to an early spark. \u201cI kept returning to the Sound of Music<\/em> and felt the echo of those first childhood chills.\u201d This ritual eased his mind and heartened him to make a big decision. He left the security of a corporate job for the uncertainty of freelancing. He said that reclaiming his time\u2014and his life\u2014was \u201clike jumping out of a top-floor window without a parachute.\u201d<\/p>\n As a freelancer, he lived lean. But the ideas flowed. Though he continued to take on corporate films and commercials, he was determined to break out into something new and different. Adding fresh inspiration to all the experience he had garnered thus far, it was time he said, \u201cfor a breath of fresh air\u201d.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n That came in the form of a 57-minute creative art history documentary called MADE BY LISIPPOS<\/a>. He wrote, directed, designed, and directed; while Fay Katsaris produced. The original score was composed by Anastasios C. Katsaris. It\u2019s the story of Alexander the Great\u2019s sculptor. Nicholas explained that though Lysippos worked exclusively in bronze, most of his creations have reached us through marble copies.<\/p>\n The Spirit of Bronze and the Spirit of Marble guide viewers through time in an exploration of the life and artistry of Alexander\u2019s portraitist. \u201cAlthough it is a documentary,\u201d he said, \u201cit\u2019s creative and visually rich approach has always made it feel more cinematic. People often tell me it feels like a movie.\u201d<\/p>\n At the film\u2019s debut screening at the inaugural AGON \u2013 The International Greek Film Festival of Archaeological Films, it received the Screenplay Award. Soon after, it received the Audience Award at Italy\u2019s celebrated International ArcheoFilmFest. Over the years, the film has traveled widely. In Greece, from Megaron in Athens to Delphi, and the Archaeological Society at Athens. Then across Europe. On its 20th<\/sup> anniversary in 2016, it appeared in a dedicated series of screenings at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, presented in conjunction with the exhibition, \u201cPower and Pathos: Bronze Sculpture of the Hellenistic World.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n PARAMYTHIA!: Poupa\u02bcs Dream, an <\/em>early cinematic concept art designed by Ember Frames. IMAGE: NICHOLAS FRANGHIAS\/EMBER FRAMES<\/em><\/p>\n Drawing on his love for movie musicals, Nicholas set to work on his second musical production. The Greek word paramythia <\/em>often evokes \u201cparanormal myth\u201d but Nicholas reminds us that it also means \u201csolace\u201d. Originally conceived as a \u201cwhimsical, private musical amusement\u201d, the piece gradually evolved into a full-fledged cinematic story. He also composed the score. It gained Nicholas his second script development award from the Greek Film Center.<\/p>\n The fantasy drama centers on a little girl named Poupa, who finds solace through song and dance to channel her recently deceased father, a devoted lover of movie musicals. When she is sent for Easter week to her anti-authoritarian priest\/uncle Father Breeze, in a rural village in Meteora, she encounters in the church graveyard Pinkoffer, the spirit of a young Broadway choreographer who asks for her help to reach his loved ones. By helping Pinkoffer make contact and then find his way to the afterlife, Poupa unwittingly sets in motion events that shake the core of her uncle\u2019s ecclesiastical world.<\/p>\n \u201cThe story explores the solace that the existence of consciousness beyond the physical world offers us in the wake of loss, free from the dogma of religion,\u201d Nicholas said.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Next came a Cold War romance that unfolds into a political thriller in 1948 Civil War Greece. Against the backdrop of the country\u2019s fight between establishing communism or restoring the pre-war, pro-Western monarchy, Ellie, a young idealist schoolteacher, is posted to the Children\u2019s Colonies founded by Queen Frederica on the island of Rhodes to educate orphans displaced by the war. There, she becomes entangled with two suitors of opposing ideologies. As she navigates their competing affections and reflections on the national division shaping people\u2019s relationships, Ellie begins investigating the children\u2019s fragmented family histories, and the search draws her into the turbulent politics of the era and toward the discovery of a nascent, covert effort to steer Greek orphans into adoptions in the US, a truth that ultimately costs her both men.<\/p>\n The film touches on a subject that has recently received much attention, as Greek adoptees\u2019 Greek citizenship has been restored and files are opening, divulging scandal, secrets, and lies. \u201cThe story reflects one of the bitterest pages in Greece\u2019s history and in the wide story of the Cold War.\u201d<\/p>\n Nicholas submitted the screenplay to the Greek Film Center. It\u2019s then-director, Award-winning Screenwriter Thanassis Valtinos<\/a> invited him to meet. Valtinos praised the work but suggested that Nicholas \u201copen up the story to expand it to a wider canvas.\u201d Having authored two ambitious projects, Nicholas wanted to keep it small and intimate\u2014and production costs low. Ultimately, Valtinos encouraged him to withdraw the project, and create a large-canvas version, then resubmit it the following year for the Film Center\u2019s highest production program, which each year awards one emerging writer-director with top distinction. He did submit as suggested, then left for the US for some respite.<\/p>\n In April 2008, the project unanimously received 250,000 euro for production development. But the funds wouldn\u2019t be released until the project officially entered production development. With the project\u2019s budget double the award, he sought funding in the US.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n With full support from his Greek co-producer, Nicholas set about making connections in the US. Through a trusted colleague in Los Angeles, he met a potential producing partner, but they did not align. He returned to Rhodes for further research for locations for the next draft, then back to the US to try again. \u201cI learned early on that the American film industry operates on a different logic. A project rarely advances simply because it\u2019s been recognized by another country\u2019s official film agency. The ecosystem here is built on strong and valid relationships\u2014essentially referrals\u2014so as a new face in the US, I focused on connecting with people and contributing where I could.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n After a screening of LISIPPOS\u00a0at the National Hellenic Museum, Nicholas met members of Chicago\u2019s Greek community. \u201cThey approached me to helped establish an annual Greek film festival. It offered me a way to meet people and contribute to the Chicago community and to my filmmaker colleagues in Greece. And find my footing in a new country.\u201d<\/p>\n Together with Diplomat Kostis Daskalopoulos and Professor Alex Papadopoulos, FilmHellenes was born, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, with a mission to celebrate Hellenic storytelling. Greek Film Fest Chicago launched in 2011. Bimonthly film screenings followed. Nicholas served as festival director from 2011-2013.<\/p>\n During this time, he remained in close contact with the Greek Film Center, updating them on Woman in Autumn<\/em>\u2019s status. \u201cI collaborated with them closely, as they regularly sent films for our festival.\u201d But the production with the Center didn\u2019t come to fruition. After four years, the Center\u2019s board of directors was fully replaced. And then the Greek financial crisis erupted. \u201cThe perfect storm,\u201d Nicholas recalled. \u201cThe Center was paralyzed and funding was suspended.\u201d This marked a turning point. \u201cIt was at that moment that I knew that my American film story, almost by force, took on a life of its own.\u201d He decided to stay, with the goal of developing Woman in Autumn<\/em> as an American project.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n From his early days as creator, Nicholas\u2019 journey to storytelling led him down twisting paths. But it only fed his passion and creativity. In Part 3, Nicholas reveals the beginnings of Ember Frames, and shares the exciting projects in development.<\/p>\n For more information about Ember Frames, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Read more:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Part 1: Award-winning Filmmaker Nicholas Franghias\u2019 Unorthodox Journey to Storytelling<\/p>\n Also by Maria A. Karamitsos:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Author Kathryn Gauci Reveals \u2018Odyssey\u2019 that Changed Her Life<\/p>\n Author Shelley Dark Chased Down a Greek Pirate in a Life-changing Adventure<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\nA slight detour<\/strong><\/h3>\n
![\"Portrait](\"https:\/\/greekcitytimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/NicholasFranghias_AlternateHeadshot_CrossedArms_Warm-240x300.webp)
<\/source><\/picture>639+1 NIGHTS (1990)<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Juggling work and passion<\/strong><\/h3>\n
![\"film](\"https:\/\/greekcitytimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Made-by-Lisippos-by-Nicholas-Franghias.jpg\")
MADE BY LISIPPOS (1996)<\/strong><\/h3>\n
![\"Paramyth\u00eda!](\"https:\/\/greekcitytimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Paramythia-by-Nicholas-Franghias.jpg\")
<\/p>\nPARAMYTHIA!<\/strong><\/h3>\n
![\"Ellie](\"https:\/\/greekcitytimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Woman-in-Autumn-by-Nicholas-Franghias.jpg\")
WOMAN IN AUTUMN<\/strong><\/h3>\n
American ideas<\/strong><\/h3>\n
![\"Poster](\"https:\/\/greekcitytimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1st-Greek-Film-Fest-Chicago-poster-2011_Maria-A-Karamitsos-archibe-225x300.webp)
<\/source><\/picture>Hello Chicago<\/strong><\/h3>\n