Category Archives: Thessaloniki Film Festival

Thessaloniki Film Festival

AT THE THESSALONIKI FILM FESTIVAL : Austerity and new "images"

It starts on Friday with a new section on underground cinema, 15 films in the International Competition section and 14 Greek premieres

The mayor of Thessaloniki G. Boutaris and the coordinator of the Festival El. Rammu
The dose of 31,5 di. euro is waiting (and) the Thessaloniki Film Festival to close the "hole" of 6,2 left by Despina Mouzaki from the anniversary event of 50 years it 2009.
Debts remained from that debt 2 million. euros that are expected to be covered by the tranche of 31,5 di. euro, while this year's 53rd event, which starts on Friday and will last until 11 November, it will cost 1,6 million. euros - a little more than last year and it will be brightened up by the presence of the internationally renowned Greek director, K. Gavras, on the occasion of the screening of his new film, «Capital».
A febrile infection kept Dim. Eipides and yesterday's press conference was given by his colleagues, while the president of the Festival and the mayor of Thessaloniki, C. Boutaris, he did not hide his desire "to have more actions during the year, but the economic situation does not help".

From this year and due to the crisis, the awards will be honorary and will not be accompanied by a monetary prize. Another innovation is the new section for those initiated into the "underground" side of cinema entitled "Night Images", which is inaugurated by the restless gaze of Costa Zappa and the experimental work of the Israeli Lior Shamriz.
They participate in the International Competition section 15 movies - both Greek, "The boy eats the bird's food" by E. Lygizou and "Hara" by H. Giannakakis- while the jury consists of: Thomas Elgesser (chairman)-professor in the Department of Cinema at the Universities of Amsterdam and Yale, Ole Christian Madsen - director from Denmark, Lovel Gudjonsdóttir - director of the Icelandic Film Center, Joao Pedro Rodriguez-director from Portugal and Greek cinematographer Thymios Bakatakis.
They will be shown in the Greek section 14 films premiering in Thessaloniki, while others 19 joined the Digital Library of the Market.
The directors
The 53rd Film Festival will honor with their presence important names in the cinema field. The much-loved Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki, the multi-award-winning creator of Kurdish origin Bahman Ghobadi;, the German filmmaker Andreas Dresen, as well as Christian Mungiu, one of the most important representatives of contemporary Romanian cinema.

TRIBUTE TO TH. ANGELOPOULO

"Journey to Kythira" and jazz concert
The 53rd Film Festival includes a tribute to the work of Theodoros Angelopoulos, whose untimely death left an unfillable void in the field of cinema.
The tribute includes three movies-stations of the director - "The Troupe" (1974), "Journey to Kythira" (1984) and "Landscape in the Mist" (1988)- as well as a discussion and a concert by Eleni Karaindrou, at 9 November at the Thessaloniki Concert Hall with Dimitra Galani and the jazz trio "Human Touch".
In the discussion, which will take place on Thursday 8 November, collaborators of Th. Angelopoulos, among them the director M. Manda, the photographer D. Sophikite, the composer El. Karaindrou, the actors E. Kotamanidou and O. Antonutti.

Source : ethnos.gr

Thessaloniki Film Festival

53the Thessaloniki festival – New band with "forbidden" movies

From the caustic look of K.. Zappa as the anxious look of the Israeli L.. Samriz

"Night Pictures" is the title of its new section Thessaloniki Film Festival to be launched this year.

With films that break taboos and explore the dark side of human nature, they provoke suspicious viewers and invite the uninitiated to discover them..

A Greek ,Costas Zapas and an Israeli, Lior Samriz are the people the festival focuses on this year. The family, sexuality and politics are primitively exposed in K.'s films. Zappa, which in fact have found commercial distribution in Greece: «Uncut Family» (2004), «The Last Porn Movie» (2006), "Small freedoms" (2008) and "The Red Mary Rebellion" (2010).

Extreme digital cinema images with scenes of forbidden eroticism, authoritarian violence catalyze moral laws within the claustrophobic family environment. We remind you that K.. Zapas is preparing a new film entitled "Frankenstein: A Death Odyssey», whose music will be signed by the internationally renowned Japanese composer Sigeru Ubebayashi.

Born in 1978 in Israel, based in Berlin, ol. Samriz raises questions about identity issues, culture and sexuality and composes a diverse cinema: influences from video art and avant garde scene, a cinematic world that resembles a temperamental home movie.

The semi-autobiographical debut of "Japan Japan" (2007), the "Saturn Returns" (2009) το «The Magic Desk» (2010) και «Mirrors for Princes» (2011) are some of his works that will be played during the festival which he has also secured and they are his short films.

Source : tovima.gr

Cinema, Thessaloniki Film Festival

The Thessaloniki Film Festival starts today

From today until 13 November, when the Festival ends, they will be shown as a whole 151 movies from 53 Countries.

Alexander Payne's new film “The Descendants / The Descendants" starring George Clooney, in the context of the 52nd Thessaloniki Festival which starts tonight.

"The festival will continue even with 1/5 of the budget that my predecessors had, and it will be even better, even more interesting, even more cinematic" said artistic director Dimitris Epidis while presenting the festival program.

The budget of this year's event is just two million euros – amount secured by NSRF, the Ministry of Culture, and sponsorships.

They participate in the official Competition program 15 first or second fiction films by directors from around the world, which will claim the Gold, the Silver and the Bronze Alexander (correspond to a cash prize 20.000, 10.000 and 5.000 euro .

This year's event also pays tribute to the work of filmmaker Konstantinos Giannaris, to the Turkish director Erden Kiral, to American Sarah Driver (partner and partner of Jim Jarmusch), the Danish Ole Christian Madsen, Austrian documentarian Urlich Seidl and Italian filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino (in Thessaloniki will be the premiere of the recent - and first English-language- his film "This must be the place" starring Sean Penn as a former rock star. – The premiere will be given next Friday night 11 November on 11 pm at the "Olympion" cinema).

The parallel organization of "Open Horizons" is also awaited with interest (with films from the independent film scene) with screenings of films such as that of the brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne "The Kid on the Bicycle" but also the Golden Lion-winning film at the recent Venice Film Festival by the multi-awarded Russian director Alexander Sokurov "Faust".

They are included in the Special Screenings, the new films by Mathieu Kasowitz "Order and Morality" and Andrey Zviadzhinchev "Elena" as well as the prize winner at the last Cannes Film Festival, film "Goodbye" by Iranian Mohammad Rasulov, who has been sentenced by the Iranian regime to 5 years in prison and a 20-year ban on making new films.