TRAILER
DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT
My Ioannina Odyssey represents a return to my roots. In content it's an exploration of my ancestral history and family mythology. In production it's a visceral, direct approach in filming, editing, and story telling. It was all shot hand held with a Leica Q3 compact digital camera. It was also significant as this was a collaboration with my daughter, Manya Glassman, a rising filmmaking talent.
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PRINCIPLE CREATIVES
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DIRECTOR
Gary Glassman is a seasoned veteran of the entertainment industry with nearly four decades of experience. His films have won and been honored with nominations for the industry’s most prestigious awards including seven Emmys and two Writers Guild Awards. Glassman follows an inclusive storytelling approach that is born of his unique entry point into the film industry – through the world of street and circus performing.
His experience connecting with people while clowning, fire-eating, and stilt walking inspired an ongoing dedication to both subjects and audiences. This quest for connection inspired him to explore the accessibility of VHS as a medium to democratize storytelling and produce participatory media projects with prisoners, hospitalized children, and developmentally challenged adults.
His films from this era include Prisoners, his first documentary, now in the permanent collections of MoMA and the Pompidou in Paris. Inspired by the connective and personal power of television, Glassman founded Providence Pictures in 1996. Under the Providence Pictures banner, he has made over 60 films for the world’s leading broadcasters.
DIRECTOR
Manya Glassman is a writer/director who uses visual imagery to explore love, family, mortality and what makes us human. Manya is a Rhode Island native, who received her BA from Providence College and went on to earn an MFA in Film Directing from NYU Tisch School of Arts.
Manya premiered her short film, How I Learned to Die (Executive Produced by Spike Lee), at Tribeca in June 2025, winning the Visionary Award. The short has gone on to screen at the Rhode Island International Film Festival, as well as Hollyshorts and Woodstock.
How I Learned to Die is currently being developed into a feature film; the script was selected for NYU’s Purple List and Tribeca’s Creator’s Market in 2025.
ART HISTORIAN, SCHOLAR
Joan Branham is Professor of Art History and Associate Provost at Providence College where she teaches courses in late-antique and medieval art and architectural history. She has been a visiting professor at Harvard University and Brown University, and Chair of the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem.
Joan obtained her PhD from Emory University in 1993 and conducted her doctoral work at the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and received postdoctoral fellowships from the Women’s Studies in Religion Program at Harvard Divinity School, Chateaubriand Foundation at the École Pratique des Hautes Études, the Sorbonne, Paris, and Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities.
Professor Branham’s research interests include theories of sacred space, the relationship of gender, blood, and sacrifice in ancient Judaism and Christianity, the iconography of late-antique synagogues and churches, and textual and visual strategies—ancient and modern—to emulate the ancient Jerusalem Temple. She has participated as a scholarly consultant on documentary film projects for PBS, NOVA, History Channel, and Discovery.
EDITOR
Rob Tinworth is an award-winning editor with over 20 years of experience in independent film and broadcast television, including documentaries for PBS, NOVA and Frontline.
In 2012 he travelled through Sichuan documenting life in China’s leprosy villages. That experience inspired The Life Equation, about impossible choices in global health. Other notable credits include Broadway Idiot, which followed Green Day’s foray into musical theater, and most recently, Taking Venice. He and Glassman have collaborated on over a dozen films.
Rob began his career in Hong Kong, worked in London and Singapore, and now calls Boston home. He continues to craft films that explain our world and explore our place within it. But now he also makes stop motion lego movies with his two boys.
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PARTIAL CREDITS
Production
Directed and Filmed by - Gary Glassman and Manya Glassman
Edited by - Gary Glassman and Rob Tinworth
Scholar – Joan Branham
Location Sound – Victor Pigasse
Archival Research and Licensing – Ben Sweeney
Post Sound Design and Mix – Greg McLeary, Heartpunch
Featuring
Ioannina Romaniote Historian – Isaak Dostis
Vice President of the Jewish Community of Ioannina – Allegra Matsa
Watch Repair and Relative – Isaak “Aki” Pitsrillos
Cultural Consultants
Odyssey Text and Greek Language – Lena Georgas
Museum Director, Kehila Kedosha Janina Synagogue, New York – Marcia Haddad Ikonomopoulos
Hebrew Prayer and Text – Paul Stouber
Music
Featuring Savina Yannatou
Trailer Music by Ed Tomney
Creative Support
Andrew Lund
Chiara Messineo
Zeke Piestrup
Nelson Walker III
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MY IOANNINA ODYSSEY TECHNICAL DETAILS
Duration: 33:20
Format: 4K 4096x2160, 23.976p
Screening Formats: DCP, Mp4, ProRes
Audio: Stereo and 5.1 Surround
Aspect Ratio: 1:90:1
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