Time-lapse Project ‘Greek Skies’ Captures Hope in the Stars

It took 365 days and 825 hours of shooting, 55,000 photos, 8,400km of footage and 650 hours of editing to get time-lapse project “Greek Skies” up and rolling. Now it’s taking the internet… and people’s hearts by storm.

The year-long time-lapse project capturing the Greece skies, was created by Panagiotis Philippou as a tribute to his passing father, who died of cancer. A project he had promised his dad while sitting by his bedside.

Upon being diagnosed with cancer himself and given months to live, 33-year-old Philippou started his ambitious venture which has thus far won the Best of the Fest at the 2015 Hollywood International Independent Documentary Awards (HIIDA) in LA, and aims to participate in the Los Angeles International Film Festival (LAIFFA) at the end of the month as a finalist.

In the opening credits, Philippou dedicates the spectacular endeavor to “victims of cancer and survivors, dedicated to my dad, Konstantinos”.

Selecting 51 timelapse scenes of 55,000 photos, Philippou shares his personal story through the “visual narration” of his “Greek Skies”.

“Greek Skies” went on the air at midnight on December 20, initially with limited appeal in Greece. The Greek Travel Pages (GTP) was among the first to share the wonderful project through its Twitter account on December 29.

Once the Los Angeles International Film Festival picked up on the project and officially selected it for LAIFFA, it went viral in Greece and abroad.

Philippou describes his cancer as “the best gift God could ever give me”. Through the ordeal he discovered “who my best friend, my true friends [were] – you know who I am talking about – the ones that would be with you during your worse moments”.

He adds that he was able for the first time to “see life with a whole new perspective which is what really made all worth it” and added that besides the actually photography work… there were “countless hours of praying”.