Last Thursday, along with the novelties of the week, the legend returned to cinemas. Shark Jaws by Steven Spielberg, the first original Hollywood blockbuster, is once again digitally restored and refinished to enjoy old and new. Nearly half a century after that iconic creation, Spielberg is still here, thriving, forcing a modern festival like this one in Toronto to award him first prize for his brand new The Fabelmans. Our own festival in Thessaloniki, for its part, is showing the right reflexes by announcing (yesterday) that it will open this year’s edition on November 3rd with the same film.

Half a century of cinema, three Oscars and an endless number of awards for one of the best ever sitting in the director’s chair. Also one of the few contemporaries who insists on still making films exclusively for the big screen. Now 76-year-old Spielberg has decided to make a film about himself. Of course, in all films there is always something through the personality of the creator, they have something in common with his view of the world, but here it is personal, almost confessional, which is confirmed by those who know him better, but also the fact that it is one . on the rarest occasion, he signs the script himself.

According to him, young Sammy Feibelman (Gabriel Labelle) falls head over heels in love with movies after watching The Greatest Show on Earth with his parents in the 1950s and soon sets his sights on becoming a film director. support for his beloved mother, played in the film by Michelle Williams. But not everything is so rosy. Family tensions, parents’ divorce (Paul Deino as father), financial hardship and anti-Semitism all hinder his path, but the cinema is always a safe haven.

The trailer for Fabelmans ends with “Hold on to every moment forever,” which could also be a descriptive definition of the movie itself. Either way, it’s clear that Spielberg is revisiting his own memories and experiences in this bittersweet coming-of-age story. It’s also more than obvious that this particular film will be a tribute (also) to the Seventh Art. The one that in the 1970s he, along with several other peers (Coppola, Scorsese, Lucas), put on new tracks, at least in its American version. Almost all of them, even with rather large breaks now, continue to work and often often remind the younger ones of their unique skill.

Fabelmans will premiere in America on November 11th and in Greek theaters on November 24th.