Neuigkeiten

The 27th Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival (TiDF) returns from March 6-16, presenting 261 films, including 72 world premieres. This year’s edition unfolds in a turbulent global climate, where political shifts and technological advancements raise urgent questions about truth and representation.

A Festival Responding to the Times

Festival director Orestis Andreadakis describes the present moment as one where the foundations of truth and democracy face constant pressure. “Four months have passed since the [Thessaloniki Intl. Film Festival], but it seems like we’re already living in a completely different world — unfortunately, not a better one,” he said. He points to recent events as reminders of lessons unlearned and histories repeating themselves.

The festival’s selection reflects that urgency, bringing together works that aim to document and interpret the complexities of the present. “The art of documentary tries to preserve reality. This is the most important thing in our difficult times. To realize what is truth, what is reality,...

As the Thessaloniki Intl. Documentary Festival prepares to host its 27th edition, which runs March 6 – 16, festival director Orestis Andreadakis sees no shortage of threats to truth, freedom and the values on which the democratic order is based. “Four months have passed since the [Thessaloniki Intl. Film Festival], but it seems like we’re already living in a completely different world — unfortunately, not a better one,” Andreadakis tells Variety.

Likening the times to “a historical documentary about the 1930s, screened backwards,” he describes world events as “an educational documentary that taught us nothing. It is a testimony for the horror of fascism and totalitarianism that it seems we have forgotten,” he continues. “It is a film record of a horrific historical reality that some are trying to repeat in the worst possible way.”

This year’s festival begins hardly a fortnight after Russia’s war in Ukraine marked its three-year anniversary, and as a tenuous...

The 65th Thessaloniki International Film Festival’s business part, the Agora, ended with top awards for filmmakers from Southeastern Europe and the Mediterranean.

The award-winning Greek film “African Grey” won the prestigious Onassis Film Award and the 10,000 euro prize that goes with it. The judges liked the film’s creative way of telling stories and its potential to change people’s perceptions of a classic genre.

The Crossroads Co-production Forum at the festival showed 15 projects from 17 countries. It was an essential place for filmmakers to meet people in the business and get money. Orestis Andreadakis, the artistic director, talked about how successful the event was and said that 13 of the films in the Official Selection had been to the Agora before.

The Turkish movie “The Hunchback” by Ahu Ozturk got another important award: the Two Thirty-Five (2|35) Award for post-production support. People liked how honest the project was about how...

Feature title African Grey by Greek Filmmaker Yorgos Goussis has picked up the Thessaloniki Film Festival’s Onassis Film Award, the largest cash prize handed out by the festival’s industry section. The award comes with a €10,000 prize.

Discussing their choice, the Agora awards jury said: “The Onassis Film Award goes to a project that redefines a beloved genre and promises a satisfying cinematic story with a surprising protagonist. A project which shows that sometimes ideas for films can be found as easily as knocking on our neighbor’s door.”

Elsewhere, The Hunchback by Turkish filmmaker Ahu Ozturk won the festival’s Two Thirty-Five (2|35) Award, which comes with image and sound post-production services while the 8,000-euro award for script development handed out by France’s Cnc was picked up by Rakan Mayas’s feature Passport.

“We wish success on all levels and we wish to see you back here in Thessaloniki with your completed films,...

The 65th Thessaloniki Film Festival kicked off on October 31st with a mission to use film as a tool for exploring complex social and political issues. Festival director Orestis Andreadakis said movies can help audiences understand real-world challenges like war, climate change, and the rise of extremism.

The opening night film was “Maria,” a biopic about Greek opera singer Maria Callas starring Angelina Jolie. The festival will close with Joshua Oppenheimer’s dystopian musical “The End.” Andreadakis said the lineup features films that provide meaningful commentary on contemporary global themes.

One highlight is a tribute program called “We, the Monsters,” curated by former Berlin and Locarno director Carlo Chatrian. It examines how filmmakers have depicted society’s fears through monstrous imagery and stories of marginalized groups. Andreadakis noted this can reveal humanity’s potential for inhumane acts within political systems and individual actions.

The 11-day festival will screen 252 feature films...

Despite blue skies over Greece’s second city ahead of the opening ceremony, the 65th Thessaloniki Film Festival kicks off Oct. 31 under clouds of uncertainty, with the war in Ukraine raging toward its three-year anniversary and the year-old Israel-Hamas conflict spilling into neighboring countries and threatening to engulf the entire Middle East. The U.S., meanwhile, heads to the polls next week for an election that’s been framed as a referendum on the fate of American democracy itself — with the eyes of the world watching.

For Thessaloniki festival director Orestis Andreadakis, a veteran film critic who’s been at the helm of the festival since 2016, global events have only brought a renewed sense of urgency “to find movies that matter,” he tells Variety on the eve of opening night. “Movies that say something about our lives, our situation in the world, with so many changes, so many dangers — wars,...

Greece’s Thessaloniki International Film Festival returns this evening for its 65th edition with a screening of Maria, the latest feature from Chilean director Pablo Larraín.

The pic, which stars Angelina Jolie and debuted at this year’s Venice Film Festival, will screen for audiences at Thessaloniki’s Olympia Theatre following an opening ceremony.

Running 31 Oct – 10 Nov, Thessaloniki will this year screen 12 films in its international competition. Titles include Edinburgh-based filmmaker Laura Carreira’s haunting debut feature On Falling. The pic, which debuted at Toronto and landed the Sutherland Award for debut film at London, follows Aurora, a young Portuguese woman who struggles to make ends meet across one week in her adopted home of Glasgow, Scotland. Other titles include Ariane Labed’s debut feature September Says and the buzzy Palestinian feature To A Land Unknown. A total of 252 feature and short films will be screened at Thessaloniki. The international...

Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival [Tidf] has issued a strongly-worded statement deploring the attack against two trans people that took place in the city over the weekend.

“The news of the attack against two trans people, which took place on Saturday night at Aristotelous Square, filled us with anger and repugnance,” said a Tidf spokesperson. “The festival unreservedly and explicitly condemns any act of homophobic and racist violence, sending out a loud and clear message of tolerance, inclusivity, acceptance and visibility through the full scope of its actions.”

This week, Tidf is holding a Citizen Queer programme featuring Lgbtqi+ documentaries, talks and presentations from acclaimed speakers,...

Good afternoon Insiders, Max Goldbart here. The clocks have gone back and it’s getting chilly but we’re here to warm your week with the very latest news and analysis. Read on and sign up here.

To The Med

Turkish delights: We spotlighted Turkey this week, and about time too as the country celebrates its 100th anniversary of independence. Turkish execs were out in force at Mipcom Cannes last month and we felt it was about time to examine a nation that has been churning out buzzy dramas and telenovelas for decades. Outfits such as distributor Global Agency and producer Tims & B have been at the forefront of the rise of Turkish TV in the international arena, which has continued throughout the reign of divisive leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Regions such as Central and Eastern Europe, Asia and Latin America have long been acquirers of its telenovelas, and word...

Greece’s Thessaloniki International Film Festival returns this evening for its 64th edition with a screening of The Pot-au-Feu (The Taste of Things), the latest film by French-Vietnamese director Trần Anh Hùng.

The pic, which took the best director gong at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, will screen for audiences at Thessaloniki’s Olympia Theatre following an opening ceremony.

Running November 2-12, Thessaloniki screens 11 debut and sophomore features, including three Greek films, in its main international feature competition. Selected titles include Animal by Sophia Exarchou, Christos Nikou’s Fingernails, and In Camera by Naqqash Khalid. A total of 270 feature and short films will be screened at Thessaloniki. The international competition sits alongside two sidebar strands, Meet the Neighbors and Fiction Forward, for regional and experimental works, with both also carrying 11 competition titles. The festival will close with Fallen Leaves by Aki Kaurismäki.

In the way of talent, Monica Bellucci...

Evia Film Project, Thessaloniki Film Festival’s green initiative forged in the aftermath of the calamitous wildfires on the Greek island of Evia in 2021, focused primarily on location scouting this year.

“It was the most important action of this project because it’s about the future and this is the most important thing. How can we leave a trace here? And a trace will be a movie, a TV series, a documentary…,” says Thessaloniki Film Festival topper Orestis Andreadakis.

Two Fam Trips – familiarization tours of locations – a town walk and a masterclass were organized for the location scouts and managers, and other film professionals attending the event. The Fam Trips aimed to give prominence to the physiognomy of Northern Evia and highlight locations in the municipalities of Istiea Edipsos and Mantoudi-Limni-Agia Anna, while the walk around the town of Loutra Edipsos showcased empty buildings, beaches, thermal baths and other hidden treasures.

The Thessaloniki Intl. Documentary Festival wrapped its 25th edition with a muted closing night on Sunday, with festival organizers scrapping an official award ceremony as Greece continues to mourn the loss of 57 lives in a deadly rail accident on Feb. 28.

The awards for this year’s festival — including the Golden Alexander, which went to Heba Khaled, Talal Derki and Ali Wajeeh’s “Under the Sky of Damascus” — were handed out behind closed doors earlier in the day.

Artistic director Orestis Andreadakis told Variety prior to the festival’s conclusion, “As a sign of respect, the festival canceled from the very start all ceremonies and festive events. In the same spirit, it was decided to call off the closing ceremony.”

Many of the awarded filmmakers were nevertheless on hand at Thessaloniki’s Olympion cinema on Sunday night, for the world premiere of “My Pet and Me,” by Dutch documentary filmmaker Johan Kramer.

The Thessaloniki Documentary Festival has called off its opening ceremony on Thursday as the Greek government declared three days of national mourning following a train crash Tuesday night that claimed at least 36 lives.

In a statement posted on Facebook Wednesday evening, the festival said it had canceled its official curtain raiser, “as well as all festive events and concerts scheduled to be held within the framework of the 25th Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival, taking part in the three-day mourning declared following the unprecedented tragedy of the train collision in Tempi.

“In these hours of grief and pain, our thoughts are with the families of the victims, to whom we express our most sincere condolences,” the statement read.

Tuesday’s fatal accident, in which a passenger train carrying 350 people collided with a freight train in northern Greece, has sparked mass outpourings of grief across the nation of 11 million. It is believed...

The Thessaloniki Documentary Festival kicks off its 25th edition Thursday at a time when the nonfiction genre has arguably reached unprecedented heights.

This year’s festival, which takes place March 2 – 12 in the seaside Mediterranean city, unfolds just days after veteran French docmaker Nicolas Philibert won the Golden Bear in Berlin for his documentary about a Paris mental health care facility, “On the Adamant.” The award capped a fortnight in which Sean Penn’s gonzo doc about Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, “Superpower,” also generated plenty of buzz (albeit lukewarm reviews).

Meanwhile, Cameroon’s Cyrielle Raingou took home Rotterdam’s Tiger Award just a few weeks earlier for “Le Spectre de Boko Haram,” a riveting view of terrorism seen through children’s eyes. And one summer ago, Laura Poitras triumphed on the Lido with “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” her docu-portrait of the photographer and activist Nan Goldin, which won the...

When audiences return for the 63rd edition of the Thessaloniki Intl. Film Festival, which runs Nov. 3-13, many hoping to discover the new wave of up-and-coming local talent might be searching for the next “Magnetic Fields,” the feature debut of graphic artist-turned-director Yorgos Goussis. After riding the success of its 2021 Thessaloniki premiere to sweep the country’s local Academy Awards, the film is representing Greece in the international feature film Oscar race.

Since its modest origins as Greek Cinema Week among movie-lovers in this handsome seaside city, the Thessaloniki event has offered a launching pad for emerging Greek talents ranging from Goussis to Theo Angelopoulos, the towering figure of 20th-century Greek cinema, who premiered his first feature, “Reconstruction,” at the fest in 1970.

Half a century later, Greece is enjoying its brightest big-screen moment since the likes of Academy Award nominee Yorgos Lanthimos ushered in the Greek Weird Wave in the late ’00s.

Orestis Andreadakis, director of the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, has a lot on his mind when he sits down with Deadline via Zoom from his office in Athens. Climate change, women’s rights, and the war in Ukraine are all topics he discussed, and he believes film festivals, including his own, must find a way to address and interrogate wider social issues.

“For us, it’s not only about films with big names or premieres,” Andreadakis tells Deadline. “We want to say something. We want to leave a trace in our hearts, soul, and mind.”

As such, this year, Thessaloniki’s lineup is littered with socially-minded films like British filmmaker Georgia Oakley’s debut feature Blue Jean, a soulful drama about homophobia in Thatcherite Britain, and Wolf and Dog by Cláudia Varejão, an astute film about gender roles and human interactions.

Overall, 199 full-length films will screen across Thessaloniki’s various sections.

Though the devastating wildfires that swept across Greece’s second-largest island last summer were the impetus for the Evia Film Project, an environmentally focused event organized by the Thessaloniki Film Festival, it’s with the future squarely in mind that festival leadership launched the inaugural edition, which ran June 15 – 19.

To that end, a series of workshops throughout the five-day event were designed to educate children of all ages about both cinema and our relationship to the environment. “Through the medium of cinema, we are going to try to sensitize the kids to environmental issues,” said Elise Jalladeau, general director of the Thessaloniki Film Festival.

Among the sessions held last week was a workshop hosted by Rancheros, an animal-rescue farm in the village of Agia Anna that rescued hundreds of animals during last year’s wildfires. Young participants visiting the farm collaborated to shoot a short documentary film about the rescue work being done there.

It had been nearly three decades since a film was last screened in Ciné Apollon, an open-air theater in the resort town of Edipsos on the north shore of the Greek island of Evia. But the arrival of several hundred moviegoers on June 15 for a screening of French filmmaker Coline Serreau’s “La Belle Verte” (The Green Planet) offered a much-needed sense of rebirth: for the cinema, and for an island that was devastated by catastrophic wildfires last summer.

As part of wide-ranging efforts to revitalize struggling communities and give a boost to the local economy, the organizers of the Thessaloniki Film Festival this year launched the Evia Film Project, a five-day event that underscores the perils of climate change and offers the film industry a chance to explore the possibilities of green film production.

When the audience gathered at the Apollon for the opening of the festival, which ran...

Thessaloniki Film Festival director Orestis Andreadakis was on summer vacation last August when he got a call from Stavros Benos, the head of the newly appointed National Reconstruction Committee, which was tasked with responding to a series of devastating wildfires that had recently swept across the island of Evia.

Just weeks before, Greece’s second-largest island had been a densely wooded paradise famous for its production of honey and resin. But nearly a third of Evia was reduced to ash and cinders during a scorching summer that saw an estimated 300,000 acres of forest and bushland incinerated by wildfires across Greece, as soaring temperatures hit a record high of 115.3 degrees.

Benos was calling the festival topper with a plea. “He said, ‘You know, this situation is tragic. We need ideas, and we need to include cinema,’” Andreadakis told Variety this week at the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival. “And I said, ‘Ok, I...

Under different circumstances, the 24th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival might have been a more celebratory affair, with coronavirus restrictions gradually loosening across Greece and the country’s second city hosting an in-person edition of a festival that was among the world’s first to go virtual at the start of the pandemic in 2020.

But with the humanitarian toll rising in Ukraine, as Russia continues its relentless assault of its Eastern European neighbor, festival director Orestis Andreadakis offered a sobering reflection on the eve of opening night on war, cinema and the need for solidarity.

“It’s shocking what is happening,” Andreadakis told Variety, likening the threat to the one faced by Europe during World War II. “After the war, we had this slogan: Never again. Never again to war. Never again to Holocaust. Never again to horror. Every time we repeated this phrase, every time we wrote it on the walls,...

In “The City and the City,” which bowed in the Berlin Film Festival’s competitive Encounters strand and will have a special screening on March 15 at the Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival, Syllas Tzoumerkas and Christos Passalis train their lens on the largely untold story of the atrocities committed against Thessaloniki’s Jewish population during World War II.

Unspooling in six fragmented chapters, the film tells the story of Thessaloniki’s Jewish community from the first half of the 20th century until the present day, where contemporary life reflects a city that violently and irrevocably lost its multicultural character, almost overnight.

Natives who both left Thessaloniki in their twenties, the directors said they wanted to focus on what Tzoumerkas described as a “blind spot” in their respective upbringings, in which the suffering and near annihilation of the city’s Jewish community went virtually unmentioned. “It’s both a homecoming for us,...

‘The City and the City’ explores the perilous existence of the Jewish community in the Greek city of Thessaloniki.

Screen can reveal the first trailer for Christos Passalis’ and Syllas Tzoumerkas’ historical drama The City And The City, which is premiering in the Berlinale’s Encounters strand.

The film explores seven decades of history around Thessaloniki – Greece’s second-largest city – and, specifically, its Jewish community. Unfolding over the course of six chapters, a prologue and an epilogue, the movie blurs the lines between documentary, narrative feature and video essay.

Tzoumerkas returns to the Berlinale this year after his third film...

When the curtain rises Thursday on the 62nd edition of the Thessaloniki Film Festival, it will be a long-awaited return to form for one of the oldest fests on the circuit, after a surge in Covid-19 cases last fall forced the organizers to pivot from a hybrid to a fully online edition.

Attempting to sum up his feelings on the eve of opening night, festival director Orestis Andreadakis was gripped by emotion, using words like “strange,” “happy” and “anxious” in the same breath.

“It’s as if you go out from the hospital, this period of pandemic, and you don’t know how to speak to your friends, you don’t know how to be in love again, you don’t know how to speak with your relatives and parents and children,” Andreadakis tells Variety. “But at the same time, you have a big appetite for life.”

For the veteran film critic,...

Valentin Merz’s “De Noche los Gatos Son Pardos” scooped the biggest prize, the Cinegrell First Look Award, at this year’s Locarno Festival First Look pix-in-post competition, one of its industry centerpieces.

Now in its tenth edition, First Look’s focus this year was Switzerland with a jury and industry audience given the chance to preview six upcoming Swiss feature films at various stages of rough or final cut.

The Cinegrell First Look Award consists in SFr 50,000 of post-production services from Cinegrell, a Zurich-based services and restoration company.

Merz’s second feature, after the time and character-hopping “A Vulgar Adventure,” “De Noche” turns on Valentin, a film director, who disappears half way through shooting a libertine costume drama in wooded hills. Robin, its Dp and Valentin’s lover, travels to the shores of Mexico’s Pacific Ocean, fulfilling a promise he once made to Valentin.

Produced by Marie Lanne-Chesnot and Merz at Andrea Film,...

Sabine Gisiger’s “The Mies van der Rohes,” Steven Vit’s “My Old Man” and Caterina Mona’s “Semret” feature in this year’s pix-in-post showcase First Look, one of the industry highlights of the Locarno Film Festival, which focuses for the first time on movies from Switzerland.

The films are joined in First Look by Valentin Merz’s “De Noche los Gatos Son Pardos,” Leon Schwitter’s “Reduit” and Jackie Brutsche’s “Las Toreras” in a six-title spread which works as a predominantly new Swiss talent showcase.

Four of the six movies are first features, another a second; only Gisiger has a directorial career that stretches back several decades.

Presented by established production houses or producers such as Zurich’s Dschoint Ventschr Filmproduktion and Ticino’s Michele Pini, the titles also drill down, often in a highly personal fashion – two of the titles are autobiographical doc features – on questions...

Giorgos Valsamis could not have predicted where his career path would lead almost a decade ago, when, as a student of fine arts and accounting, he bought a camera to photograph the dramatic landscapes of Iceland, where he was on a study-abroad program. “It never crossed my mind that I could be a cinematographer,” Valsamis told Variety. “Until 2013, I didn’t know what a director of photography actually was.”

Seven years and two Palmes d’Or later, Valsamis is a fast-rising talent, and one of eight Greek cinematographers being feted this week as part of the Thessaloniki Film Festival’s Meet the Future program, which launched last year to give a boost to emerging film professionals from across Europe.

For its first edition, Meet the Future showcased 15 promising young Greek directors who were developing their first feature films. This year, the program trained its lens on up-and-coming local cinematographers. “The...

With their Athens offices shuttered by the pandemic in the weeks leading up to this year’s Thessaloniki Intl. Film Festival, industry head Yianna Sarri and her brain trust began holding weekly meetings at cafés in the Greek capital, social-distancing and trying to make the most of an increasingly fluid and unpredictable situation.

Despite the uncertainty about whether or not the festival would move forward with a physical edition—a plan that was ultimately scrapped just days before the opening night on Nov. 5—Sarri and her team knew that Agora, the festival’s industry arm, would be an online affair. “We took this decision from the beginning,” she told Variety.

The group might have felt an uncanny sense of déjà vu: this spring, TIFF’s sister event, the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, was among the first international film fests to go virtual, live-streaming the pitching forum of its annual Agora Doc...

With days to spare before the opening night of this year’s Thessaloniki Intl. Film Festival, organizers were suddenly forced to contend with a dramatic spike in coronavirus cases in Greece’s second city, prompting them to scrap plans for a hybrid edition and move entirely online.

The sudden reversal, said festival director Orestis Andreadakis, was “really, really difficult,” but not entirely unforeseen, as the country grapples with a second wave of Covid-19 that has far outpaced the first wave in the spring. Contingency plans were already in place, as Andreadakis and his colleagues spent months preparing for a variety of scenarios. “It was extremely difficult, because it was as if [we were] preparing three festivals” at the same time, he said.

On Nov. 3, the Greek government introduced a raft of new measures determined to halt the pandemic’s spread, including a curfew in both Thessaloniki and the country’s capital, Athens,...

The important Greek film gathering is back in (online) business, showcasing more than 170 films to its local audience. The 61st Thessaloniki International Film Festival (TIFF) will unspool entirely online from 5-15 November, screening a total of 177 films available to local audiences, who can purchase their tickets on the festival’s website. TIFF’s artistic director, Orestis Andreadakis, underlines: “As we wheel out the Festival’s online version, we don’t cease to seek new theoretical tools to interpret not only cinema and the arts, but also the very reality that surrounds us. We set up visual art events in Thessaloniki’s public space; we plan alternative solutions for all our Festival’s upcoming actions. Our motto ‘Cinema, no matter what’ is a means for love and understanding, a way for us to lay down some rules of our own, over the ones imposed by the new coronavirus, a reaction against the reversed world we.

The decision was reached earlier today after festival heads met with municipal and health authorities as well as the culture ministry.

The 2020 edition of the Thessaloniki international Film Festival (November 5-15) is moving fully online after previously being set to run as a hybrid event.

Screen has learned that the decision was reached earlier today (Oct 28) after festival heads met with municipal and health authorities as well as the culture ministry.

The festival was set to screen international competition titles and a number of other events at seven venues in the city. However, the recent rise in Covid cases in...

Jerusalem, Sarajevo and Tallin Black Nights have all agreed to adopt the rules.

The Thessaloniki International Film Festival has teamed with the likes of Jerusalem, Sarajevo and Tallin Black Nights on common rules to be adopted for the online versions of festivals.

The full list of the 18 signatory events is below.

Titled a ’Plea for a festival pact to support and protect the audiovisual ecosystem in a digital environment’, its two key recommendations are:

Festivals should agree to geoblock the online screenings of national and international premieres; Loosen, as much as possible, rules on international premieres for films that have...

Among the first fests to suffer the repercussions of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Thessaloniki International Film Festival has also been one of the most proactive in adapting to the lockdown mode. Earlier this March, Tiff’s docs-only spinoff, the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, turned its 22nd edition into a digital-only gathering scheduled to go live between May 19-28. And in early April, Tiff announced the launch of “Spaces,” a new online series showcasing short films by world renowned auteurs inspired by—and made during—the quarantine. Borrowing from Species of Spaces, a collection of essays from French author Georges Péréc, Tiff reached out to 8 Greek and 14 international filmmakers to commission short films grappling with the pandemic-induced confinement, all shot from the confines of home. In the words of Tiff artistic director Orestis Andreadakis, the project “was meant to remind us that art, and film, can fill any space with meaning, and disperse our solitude.

The festival was supposed to take place from 5-15 March but has been postponed amid worries about new cases of the disease in Greece and following the latest announcement issued by the Who. The 22nd Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, which was set to take place from 5-15 March, has been postponed following the latest announcement issued by the World Health Organization, which has updated its estimates concerning the spread of the coronavirus, the festival said in a press release today. “The safety of the working staff, the audience, the city’s residents and the festival’s guests from both Greece and abroad is our top priority. We are considering the prospect of hosting the 22nd Thessaloniki Documentary Festival at the end of May/beginning of June, and we’ll keep you up to date as soon as there’s more news to share,” said the festival. The gathering’s artistic director,...

As the Thessaloniki Intl. Film Festival celebrates its 60th edition, what began as a small-scale celebration called Greek Cinema Week has evolved into a vital platform for filmmakers from Greece and around the region, finding a natural home in this historical crossroads that has at various points been under Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman rule.

“We are in the middle of southeastern Europe and the eastern Mediterranean, so I think Thessaloniki is the key town to introduce the huge neighborhood from the south bank of the Danube to the Adriatic, from the Black Sea until the Nile,” says festival artistic director Orestis Andreadakis.

For this year’s edition, which takes place from Oct. 31-Nov. 10, the fest unspools an ambitious slate of festival darlings, provocative premieres and Greek cinema classics.

Competition section Meet the Neighbors will launch with a focus on first and second features by emerging filmmakers from the region. And...

Danish doc examines Chinese-inflated property boom.

Danish project Dream Empire won the top prize at the Thessaloniki International Documentary Film Festival, which wrapped yesterday (12 March).

Director David Borenstein’s film about the inflated economic and real estate boom in China won the Golden Alexander award and a 5,000 Euros prize.

Produced by House of Real, the film is sold by Gunpowder and Sky Distribution (Us).

The Special Jury award and 2000 Euros went to the Indian, German, Finnish co-production Machines by Rahul Jain.

The film examines a huge giant textile factory in India and the human cost of mass production in a globalised world.

Produced by the director’s Jan Pictures, Pallas Film and IV Films and sold by Autlook Film Sales (Germany), the film was also the recipient of the Fipresci award.

A Special Mention went to the Greek, Belgian. Austrian co-production Shingal, Where Are You where director Angelos Rallis told the story of Yezidi refugees fleeing the Isis...

Hungarian action-comedy Kills On Wheels and Icelandic-Danish coming of age story Heartstone take top prizes at Greek festival.Scroll down for full list of winners

Hungarian director Attila Till’s Kills On Wheels (Tiszta Szivvel) has been named best film at the 57th Thessaloniki International Film Festival (Nov 3-13) winning the “Theo Angelopoulos” Golden Alexander award.

The film beat out 16 first and second films screened in this year’s competition section.

Kills On Wheels’ three leading young actors, Zoltan Fenyvesi, SzaboIcs Thuroczy and Adam Fekete were jointly awarded the Best actor trophy.

The film, arriving from the Chicago film festival where it won the Roger Ebert award, deals with three wheelchair-using young adults who decide to offer their services to the mafia in an effort to overcome their daily routines. World sales are handled by the Hungarian Film Fund.

Icelandic-Danish co-production Heartstone (Hjartasteinn) by Icelandic director Gudmundur Arnar Gudmundsson, was awarded the Special Jury Prize, Silver Alexander...

Hedi won best film, while Matt Johnson won best director for Operation Avalanche.

The Tunisian-French-Belgian co-production Hedi by Mohamed Ben Attia has won the best film award, the Golden Athena, at the 22nd Athens International Film Festival (September 22-October 2).

The film was co-produced by Tanit Films, Nomadis Images and the Dardenne brothers production outlet Les Films du Fleuve.

Majd Mastoura stars in the lead role as a young man who tries to break loose from his dominant mother and some of Tunisia’s more conservative social norms.

The film debuted at Berlin Film Festival 2016, winning the best first film award and a best actor prize for Mastoura.

The Aiff awards were decided by a five-member international jury presided over by the BFI programmes curator Nicola Gallani. The jury included German film critic Julia Teichmann (Film Dienst), French producer Sylvia Perel and her compatriot film critic Bernard Nave (Jeune Cinema).

Matt Johnson won the best director trophy for [link...

Andreadakis joins from the Athens International Film Festival, which he co-founded.

Film critic and festival organizer Orestis Andreadakis has been named artistic director of the Thessaloniki International Film Festival (Tiff) in replacement of Dimitris Eipides who resigned earlier this year, after a long and successful career at the helm of the event.

The announcement was made by recently appointed Tiff general director Elise Jalladeau and the board of directors headed by Dop George Arvanitis.

French educated Andreadakis arrives to the post strong from his experience at the helm of the Athens International Film Festival, an event he co-founded 21 years ago, his tenure as director of the cinema monthly Cinema and as conductor of cinema related programmes at the Mega TV network.

Dividing his time between the Athens and Thessaloniki headquarters of the festival, Andreadakis faces the challenge of adapting to an organization much different in scope, size and international status from the Athens event he leaves behind...

Other winners included Norwegian drama Blind, Danish horror When Animals Dream and Nick Cave doc 20,000 Days On Earth.

Yann Demange’s ’71 has won the best film award – the Golden Athena – at the 20th Athens International Film Festival (Sept 17-28).

The film, co-produced by Crab Apple Films, Protagonist Pictures and Warp Films, stars Jack O’Connell as a soldier left behind enemy lines in Belfast during the height of the Troubles.

It debuted at the Berlinale in February and more recently played at Toronto.

The Aiff awards ceremony also saw Eskil Vogt win the best director trophy for Norwegian drama Blind.

The film, which previously won awards at Berlin and Sundance (where it debuted), is about a recently blind woman who fears and fantasies begin to take over her life.

Blind marks Vogt’s directorial debut following a screenwriting career that has included Reprise (2006), Oslo, August 31st (2011) and Joachim Trier’s upcoming Louder Than Bombs. It was co-produced...

The 20th edition of the festival includes competition titles ’71 and Blind.

The Athens International Film Festival (Sept 17-28) kicks off its 20th edition today with 241 titles selected by artistic director Orestis Andreadakis.

The festival will open with Damian Szifron’s hit Wild Tales, which has proved a critical hit since its world premiere in competition at Cannes, and will close with David Fincher’s Us crime drama Gone Girl, marking its European premiere.

This year’s international competition includes Yann Demange’s Berlinale title, ’71, and Eskil Vogt’s Blind, which has picked up awards in Berlin and Sundance among others.

‘71, Yann Demange (UK)10,000 km, Carlos Marques-Marcet (Spa)Blind, Eskil Vogt (Nor)The Canal, Ivan Kavanagh (Irel)Manos Sucias, Josef Wladyka (Us-Col)The Mend, John Magary (Us)Natural Sciences, Matías Lucchesi (Arg)Thou Wast Mild and Lovely, Josephine Decker (Us)The Way He Looks, Daniel Ribeiro (Bra)When Animals Dream, Jonas Alexander Arnby (De)

A five-member Youth Jury, comprised...

The Audience Award went to Destin Daniel Cretton’s Us festival hit Short Term 12; The Athens International Film Festival wrapped with Blue Is The Warmest Colour.

Yann Gonzalez’s debut feature You and the Night was named Best Film at the 19th Athens International Film Festival (Aiff) which ran September 19-29.

A Modern day retelling of Sade’s Philosophy In The Bedroom, the film, written by Gonzalez, stars Alain-Fabien Delon alongside Eric Cantona, Kate Moran, Fabienne Babe and Niels Schneider.

It was chosen by a jury made up of film school students, aged 18-25.

The Best Director Award went to second timer American Sam Fleischner for Stand Clear Of The Closing Doors, a coming of age story about a 13 years-old autistic boy, son of an illegal Mexican immigrant mother in New York.

French debutant Antonin Peretjako picked up the Best Screenplay award for The Rendez-vous of Deja-Vu, about the adventures of a group of young Parisians...

Pablo Ferro is "more popularly known for his work as a master title sequence designer (Dr Strangelove and The Thomas Crown Affair among countless others) and occasionally an actor as well (Greaser's Palace)," writes Marcus Herring in an entry punctuated with clips and exclamations, "but Pablo also crafted a number of the most memorable trailers of all time…. The Cinefamily is devoting an entire evening to showcasing the genius of Pablo Ferro on Tuesday September 27th, with Pablo himself in attendance! He'll bring loads of unavailable commercials (Beachnut Gum!), rare 35mm trailers (the Japanese version of A Clockwork Orange!), lost animations, and of course, his famous title sequences. We'll finish everything off with an ultra-rare presentation of Pablo's 1969 short The Inflatable Doll, starring one of our favorite on-screen strangemen, Don Calfa!" More on Pablo Ferro from Holly Willis; plus, three sites dedicated to his work: 1, 2 and 3.

"Greece, of course,...

Greece may be on the verge of financial collapse, but that hasn't stopped its film festival from going ahead. Its artistic director hopes it may even create jobs

Reading the reports from most film festivals, it would be easy to forget that the world is in the grip of economic crisis. Brad and Angelina take their familiar spot on the red carpet in Cannes, gorgeous George beams yet again from the deck of his Venice water taxi , glamour and escapism still rule. These festivals pay lip service to the locals, but their main concern is image.

This year's Athens international film festival, however, has had a different outlook. As its artistic director Orestis Andreadakis puts it: "We want to give hope."

Greece, of course, is getting it in the neck; not only is its economy in shreds, but it is being paraded as the pariah of Europe, the only country...