Joseph Hepp(1897-1968)
- Cinematographer
- Director
- Editor
Joseph Hepp was a Hungarian-Greek cinematographer and film director. Originally working for Pathé, Joseph Hepp moved to Athens in 1910, first as a projectionist for the Panellinion Cinema, then he shot newsreels such as 'The Little Princes at the Palace's Garden' (of which only a few fragments have survived), at the request of King George I, who soon named him Royal Photographer and Cinematographer. He then filmed the Balkan wars including the capture of Thessaloniki. In December 1916, he also filmed the excommunication of Eleftherios Venizelos at the time of the National Schism, the first political report in the history of Greek cinema. In 1916-1917, Joseph Hepp founded the production company Asty Films with Giorgos Prokopiou. One of the innovations of the company, due to Hepp, was the development of a new technique for inserting Greek titles in imported films. Their first project The Uphill of Golgotha (1917) was not completed. In 1917 he worked with Dimos Vratsanos and Filippo Martelli on Annoula's Dowry (1917). However, the company's financial difficulties forced Hepp to sell it back to a consortium of wealthy Cape Town Greeks. In 1917, suspected, as an Austro-Hungarian of being favorable to the Triple Alliance (which was the case), Joseph Hepp was exiled on Skyros, then Ikaria. In the early 1920s, he shot the Vilar series. For two 1930s short films, including I kamariera kai o manavis (1930), he developed his own sound system. Hepp was then working for the production house Olympia Films.