The Thessaloniki Film Festival invites the audience to experience an exciting film celebration of youth, as part of its participation in #SKG Bridges Uprising Arts & Culture Festival, a large festival of youth culture focused on diverse art forms and artists from the European South, that will take place from Wednesday, May 9th to Sunday, May 13th 2018 at various public venues in the city of Thessaloniki, Greece.
Within this framework TFF presents the free-admission tribute "Wild Hearts” that will be held during the #SKG Bridges Festival in the two cinema theatres located at Warehouse 1 (Port of Thessaloniki), presenting 8 films of recent production that defined cinema’s relationship with youth and highlighted important aspects of this milestone period of human life. All films will be screened with English subtitles.
The films explore the charming vices of youth by tackling its constant transformations: from the joyous acceptance of life’s challenges and the immense creative momentum, to the definition of the inner self and the conflict with the adult world. Starting with Clio Barnard’s tender film The Selfish Giant, the tribute moves on to introduce us to the competitive male protagonists in Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Chevalier, the little “princess” starring in Benh Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild, the party-going youngsters in Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some!! and the three-part story of Chiron in Barry Jenkins' Oscar-winning film Moonlight, passing by Yannis Sakaridis’ Amerika Square located in Athens, Greece, to a fishing village in Iceland that provides the backdrop in Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson’s Heartstone, ending up to the independent, passionate heroines of Céline Sciamma’s Girlhood.
The #SKG Bridges Festival is an initiative of the Office of Social Policies of the Greek Prime Minister’s General Secretariat in cooperation with the Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports and aims to bring together Thessaloniki-based institutions, organizations, groups and initiatives, urging the participation of artists from Southern European countries. All events are admission free.
Screenings schedule
Wednesday 9/5
19:00 The Selfish Giant
21:30 Everybody Wants Some!!
Thursday 10/5
19:00 Girlhood
21:30 Amerika Square: Film presentation by the protagonist, actor Vassilis Koukalani
Friday 11/5
19:00 Heartstone
22:00 Chevalier: Film presentation by the protagonist, actor Yorgos Pyrpassopoulos
Sunday 13/5
19:00 Beasts of the Southern Wild
21:30 Moonlight
The rest of the films will be presented by student groups of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
The films
The Selfish Giant
(UK, 2013)
Direction - screenplay: Clio Barnard. Actors: Conner Chapman, Shaun Thomas, Sean Gilder. Colour, 93΄. Language: English.
Α contemporary fable about 13-year-old Arbor and his best friend Swifty. Excluded from school and outsiders in their own neighbourhood, the two boys meet Kitten, a local scrap dealer – the Selfish Giant. They begin collecting scrap metal for him using a horse and cart. Swifty has a natural gift with horses, while Arbor emulates Kitten - keen to impress him and make some money. However, Kitten favors Swifty, leaving Arbor feeling hurt and excluded, driving a wedge between the boys. Arbor becomes increasingly greedy and exploitative, resembling Kitten more and more. Tensions build, leading to a tragic event which will transform them all.
- Label Europa Cinemas (Directors’ Fortnight) Award, Cannes IFF 2013
*Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiagHbueSEk
*****
Everybody Wants Some!!
(USA, 2016)
Direction - screenplay: Richard Linklater. Actors: Will Brittain, Zoey Deutch, Ryan Guzman, Tyler Hoechlin, Blake Jenner, J. Quinton Johnson, Glen Powell, Wyatt Russell. Colour, 117΄. Language: English.
Texas, 80s. In the midst of global changes, a group of first-year college students and baseball aficionados comes in contact with the well-known cliques of the American university, the endless parties and the American dream itself.
*Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyuCY_UT7KY
*****
Girlhood / Bande de Filles
(France, 2014)
Direction - screenplay: Celine Sciamma. Actors: Karidja Touré, Assa Sylla, Lindsay Karamoh. Colour, 113΄. Language: French.
Oppressed by her family setting, dead-end school prospects and the boys’ law in the neighborhood, Marieme starts a new life after meeting a group of three free-spirited girls. She changes her name and dress code, and quits school to be accepted in the gang, hoping that this will be a way to freedom.
-Best Film-Bronze Horse, Stockholm IFF 2014
-Nominee LUX Prize 2014
-Director's Fortnight, Cannes IFF 2014
*Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqeBXrNZpto
*****
Moonlight
(USA, 2016)
Direction: Barry Jenkins. Screenplay: Barry Jenkins, Tarell Alvin McCraney. Actors: Mahershala Ali, Sheriff Earp, Janelle Monae, Naomie Harris. Colour, 111΄. Language: English.
Moonlight follows the life of a young African-American boy from childhood to adulthood as he struggles to find his place in the world; a revealing portrait of this man's life and a poetic tribute to identity, family, friendship and love.
-Oscar for Best Film, Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role, Best Adapted Screenplay
*Trailer:: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NJj12tJzqc
*****
Beasts of the Southern Wild
(USA, 2012)
Direction: Benh Zeitlin. Screenplay: Lucy Alibar, Benh Zeitlin. Actors: Quvenzhane Wallis, Dwight Henry, Levy Easterly. Colour, 93΄. Language: English.
In a forgotten but defiant bayou community cut off from the rest of the world by a sprawling levee, a six-year-old girl exists on the brink of orphanhood. Buoyed by her childish optimism and extraordinary imagination, she believes that the natural world is in balance with the universe until a fierce storm changes her reality. Desperate to repair the structure of her world in order to save her ailing father and sinking home, this tiny heroine must learn to survive unstoppable catastrophes of epic proportions.
*Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvqZzSMIZa0
*****
Heartstone / Hjartasteinn
(Iceland - Denmark, 2016)
Direction - screenplay: Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson. Actors: Baldur Einarsson, Blær Hinriksson, Diljá Valsdóttir. Colour, 129΄. Language: Icelandic.
A remote fishing village in Iceland. Teenage boys Thor and Christian experience a turbulent summer as one tries to win the heart of a girl while the other discovers new feelings toward his best friend. When summer ends and the harsh nature of Iceland takes back its rights, it’s time to leave the playground and face the forces from their environment and inner conflict that can drive them apart... A coming-of-age story of brotherhood, self-acceptance, strong girls and the importance of family, which draws inspiration from nature and from the strong feelings that come to you when walking over untouched ground.
*****
Chevalier
(Greece, 2015)
Direction: Athina Rachel Tsangari. Screenplay: Efthymis Filippou, Athina Rachel Tsangari. Actors: Yorgos Kentros, Panos Koronis, Vangelis Mourikis, Makis Papadimitriou, Yorgos Pyrpasopoulos, Sakis Rouvas, Yannis Drakopoulos. Colour, 99΄. Languages: Greek, English.
In the middle of the Aegean Sea, on a luxury yacht, six men on a fishing trip decide to play a game. During this game, things will be compared. Things will be measured. Songs will be butchered, and blood will be tested. Friends will become rivals and rivals will become hungry. But at the end of the voyage, when the game is over, the man who wins will be the best man. And he – the best in general– will wear upon his littlest finger the victorious signet ring: the Chevalier.
-Special Jury Mention “Heart of Sarajevo” for Best Actor (all cast) – Sarajevo IFF 2015, Bosnia-Herzegovina
-Best Film Award - BFI London Film Festival 2015, UK
*Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ad1qwyHBsB4
*****
Amerika Square
(Greece - UK - Germany, 2016)
Direction: Yannis Sakaridis. Screenplay: Yannis Sakaridis, Yannis Tsirbas, Vagelis Mourikis Actors: Yannis Stankoglou, Makis Papadimitriou, Vassilis Koukalani, Themis Bazaka, Errikos Litsis, Xenia Dania Colour, 86΄. Languages: Greek, English, Arabic
America Square is a square in Athens. It’s the Casablanca of our times. The film is a triptych revealing the opposing forces of today’s humanitarian challenges. Two friends, Billy, a tattoo artist, and Nakos, a ‘banal’ Greek racist, come head to head in America Square in Athens on the occasion of the survival journey of Tarek, a Syrian refugee.
