53rd THESSALONIKI INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
November 2- 11, 2012
NIGHT VIEWS
For the 53rd edition of the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, a new section entitled Night Views is established, which in its first year will showcase the work of two filmmakers, Greek Costas Zapas and Israeli Lior Shamriz. Night Views will focus on cinema that experiments with both form and content, breaks taboos, explores the darkest sides of human nature and defies mainstream concerns and conventions.
Both filmmakers will attend the 53rd TIFF to present and discuss their work.
COSTAS ZAPAS
Costas Zapas has consistently focused on uncovering a society in disintegration; his cinema is unforgiving in its commitment to present reality as he sees it. Urban life is viewed through the prisms of politics, family and sexuality 
and presented in a manner that could be described as almost primitive. Zapas writes aggressive, angry dialogue, draws grotesque characters, while at the same time employing a “dirty” and raw digital aesthetic.
The trilogy Uncut Family (2004, 75’), The Last Porn Movie (2006, 100’) and Minor Freedoms (2008, 82’) centers on repressive violence, forbidden eroticism and the breakdown of ethical boundaries within the familial environment; the Greek nuclear family is viewed as the pathogen of a more generalized moral crisis. In his most recent film, The Rebellion of Red Maria (2010, 95’), the aforementioned viewpoint is again explored, this time through the story of two anti-heroes conducting their own rebellion against the norm.
Zapas’ films are internationally represented by Trust Film Sales, the distribution arm of Lars von Trier’s Zentropa. His most recent project, not yet completed, is entitled Frankenstein: A Death Odyssey, and will feature original music by Japanese composer Shigeru Umebayashi, known for his work in films such as Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood for Love, Tom Ford’s A Single Man and Michael Winterbottom’s Trishna.
LIOR SHAMRIZ
Prolific filmmaker Lior Shamriz, was born in 1978 in Israel and is currently living and working in Berlin; his company, Spektakulativ Pictures, produces all his films. His 
semi-autobiographical debut, Japan Japan (2007, 65’, Israel/USA), was screened at more than 50 international film festivals, such as the Locarno IFF, BAFICI, as well as New Directors/New Films showcase in the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Japan Japan had a miniscule budget of a few hundred euros, and mixed avant-garde, video art and home movie aesthetics and practices, in experimental and innovative ways. It set the pace for the rest of Shamriz’s work, which examines identity, culture and sexuality and creates a universe that is particular and unique to the director.
In addition to Japan Japan, Shamriz’s other films that will be screened during the 53rd TIFF are: Saturn Returns (2009, 90’, Germany/Israel), a tribute to punk underground films that morphs into melodrama, Mirrors for Princes (2011, 63’, Germany), an experimental work about death, the 10-minute The Magic Desk and other short films, as well as his latest film, A Low Life Mythology (2012, 80’, Germany), a love story between two video artists who are unable to enjoy the present moment, as their sense and perception of reality is deeply affected by their work.
