The Thessaloniki Cinematheque Library opened on Saturday, March 23, 2013, as part of the 15th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival activities. Present were Dimitri Eipides, TIFF and TDF Director and Yiannis Boutaris, Mayor of Thessaloniki. The Library is located in the Thessaloniki Film Museum – Cinematheque (Warehouse A, Port).
Visibly moved by the event, Mr. Eipides noted: “Today what we have dreamed of for many years has finally been achieved. The Thessaloniki International Film Festival and the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival are not enough to provide film education throughout the year. Right from the beginning, our goal was to found the Thessaloniki Cinematheque, something that has not been easy to do. Mr. Eipides thanked the Head of the Cinematheque, Argyro Mesimeri, for her work. He made particular reference to the impact the Cinematheque has had on the audience, and on the attendance figures at its screenings: “Cinema continues to evolve, in spite of the hard times we are going through”, he said.
Ms Mesimeri noted: “Today is a day of happiness and emotion. Thirty years ago, the late Pavlos Zannas was generous enough to donate his personal collection of books on cinema to the non-profit organization Studio-Parallel Circuit. Since then the collection has kept on being enriched, and this is how the adventure that led to today’s founding of the Cinematheque Library began. It is a great joy that all these books have been preserved, while other donors have also contributed, such as Antonis Moschovakis, along with collections such as that of the Thessaloniki International Film Festival. In this way, the largest film library in Greece has been founded, right in the bosom of the TIFF, an institution that has been around for 53 years in a unique city with a unique cinema consciousness”.
As Ms Mesimeri stressed, the renovation of the Cinematheque Library premises was made possible through the financial support of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation. She conveyed a greeting from Ms Anna Maria Kosmoglou, the Foundation’s Grants Manager, saying: “I am conveying to you the pleasure of the Foundation’s Board of Directors. The founding of the Library is a very interesting initiative, and I hope that it draws even more people here, students, children and families, to become a place of learning, education and entertainment. The Stavros Niarchos foundation is particularly sensitive to the role libraries play, and promotes them, with the founding of the National Library being the leading initiative. We hope that the Cinematheque Library will provide a breath of optimism to the city of Thessaloniki”.
The Mayor of Thessaloniki, Yiannis Boutaris, inaugurated the Cinematheque Library. “It is my pleasure to open the Cinematheque Library, an important initiative of the Film Festival, through which the activity of The Thessaloniki Cinematheque is fundamentally broadened”, Mr. Boutaris said. He added: “The Cinematheque has had an impressive journey thus far; it has acquired a faithful audience, has more than 1,900 members, and contributes to the creation of a film nucleus in the city, in connection with the Thessaloniki International Film Festival and the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival”. Mr. Boutaris thanked the Stavros Niarchos Foundation for its support, as well as the staff of the Thessaloniki International Film Festival. “I am certain that the Festival will persist in renewing and expanding itself”, he observed and added: “As Mayor of Thessaloniki I took on the seat of President of the institution’s Board of Directors under certain terms. One of these was the need to develop activities beyond the duration of the two Festivals, at all levels of the city. One of these activities was the Cinematheque, as well as the effort to ensure continuous use of the Port venues by the Festival”.
Also present at the event was Pavlos Zannas’ son, Alexandros, who expressed his pleasure at this “very fortunate happening”, as he called it, reminiscing about the years of his childhood: “ I remember that every Sunday my father would disappear, because he went to the screenings of the Film Club at the Makedonikon, the Alexandros and the Bakouras. And I, a small child going to primary school, would go to one or two screenings appropriate to my age. I still remember film books at our house, the cover pages of Cahiers du Cinema. This library kept growing; the subscriptions didn’t stop even during the time of the Junta. There were friends of my father’s who contributed in maintaining the subscriptions. After the fall of the Junta, my father continued to busy himself with his film collection, until about ’85-’87, when he turned his interest to translations. The Film Library was donated to the Studio-Parallel Circuit, and today it is here. I feel very happy about the fact that a library which began in Thessaloniki has had such a happy conclusion”.
Bringing the event to a close, Ms Mesimeri referred to the digitalization project. As she said, part of the Cinematheque Library has been already digitalized, while the process continues through the use of a new National Strategic Reference Framework (NSFR) program.
The Cinematheque Library includes the totality of the Thessaloniki Film Museum collection, roughly 2,000 books and periodicals on cinema. Additionally, the public has access to the total collection of the non-profit organization Studio-Parallel Circuit which contains 6,000 books and periodicals, which to a great degree has come from donations – indicative is the personal film library of the late Pavlos Zannas and that of the critic Antonis Moschovakis – and which has continued being enriched.
Thessaloniki Cinematheque Library events are financed by the European Union’s Regional Development Fund for Central Macedonia, 2007-2013.
