Commissioned for a television series on Europe's cultural capitals, Theo Angelopoulos' ode to the city of Athens draws from the poetry of George Seferis, the music of Manos Hadjidakis and the paintings of Tsarouchis. The most essayistic of Angelopoulos' works Athens, Return to the Acropolis is a personal journey through the city where he was born and raised.

Preceded by Angelopoulos first completed film Broadcast, which he began in 1966 and completed in the wake of the 1967 coup. The film is a strange deadpan satire centred upon a group of journalists conducting a poll to determine the attributes of "the ideal man".