With new collaborations, top-notch actions and programs, and participation to talks, aiming to support the Greek cinema community and the producers-filmmakers from Greece, Thessaloniki Film Festival, with the support of the Ministry of Culture, is gearing up for a dynamic presence at the Cannes Film Festival (14-25 May, 2024).
Producers from Greece at Cannes Docs
Thessaloniki Film Festival is showcasing this year four producers from Greece at the top-notch action Cannes Docs, at the Marché du Film of the Cannes Film Festival, the biggest film market of the world.
Since 2018, the Festival is hosting similar special events at Cannes for the promotion of Greek cinema at the world stage.
This year, the producers, whose projects took part at the Agora Docs in Progress of the 26th Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival, will present their work in a special event held on May 19th to a wide spectrum of film industry professionals, targeted to coproductions, international sales and festival premieres. Greece is among the three delegations invited this year by Cannes Docs, alongside Spain and Canada. The participation in Cannes Docs, which focuses on tomorrow’s documentaries, is supported by the Recovery and Resilience Fund, within the framework of the work “SUB 6.3 - Market extroversion of the Thessaloniki Film and Documentary Festival”.
The participants at Cannes Docs:
Rea Apostolides - Anemon Productions
Rea was born in the United Kingdom and grew up in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland and Cyprus. She studied Αncient & Μodern History at the University of Oxford and Modern Greek History & Literature at King's College, London. She produces documentaries and cross media projects for Anemon in Athens, with a focus on history, culture and gender. Her recent work includes The Perfect Meal (2023, CPH:DOX, for ARTE, RTVE, RTS, Kokka Fund and ERT), When Tomatoes Met Wagner (2019, Berlinale, Greek entry 2020 Academy Awards, Arte, NHK), Citizen Europe (2019, Arte, Screen Ireland, CNC, Bulgarian Film Center, RTE, ERT, RTP), Berlinale Teddy Award winner Obscuro Barroco (2018), and Dolphin Man (2018), ARTE, CNC, WOWOW, Greek Film Centre, Knowledge, TVO, ERT, CYBC, SVT, Yes DBS, TSR). Rea is also the co-founder of CineDoc, a network screening documentaries and films for children in cinemas across Greece since 2009. In March 2024, she participated with the documentary Dark Waters directed by Marianna Economou at the Agora Docs in Progress of the 26th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival. The project won the Onassis Film Award, accompanied by 5,000 euros.
Konstantinos Vassilaros - StudioBauhaus
Konstantinos Vassilaros is a producer & co-founder of StudioBauhaus. He has produced short fiction
& animation films, documentaries including Iodine: Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi directed by Orfeas Peretzis (Thessaloniki IDF Audience Award Winner), and feature films including Holy Emy, directed by Araceli Lemos (Locarno Special Mention Winner, two Independent Spirit Awards nominations). Currently in post-production for Greek-Colombian director Spiros Stathoulopoulos’ (PVC-1, 2007 Cannes - Quinzaine des Realisateurs) 4th feature film. In early 2024 he was selected at Torino’s Green Film Lab, and ACE’s Animation Special (Dingle, Ireland). He studied film production at the University for Creative Arts (UK), NY Film Academy (US), and holds a master’s in creative entrepreneurship from Goldsmiths. Other notable works: line producer for the Athens studio set up alongside Poland for the Oscar & Golden Globe nominated animation Loving Vincent, video producer at the French News Agency (AFP). He is a member of EAVE Producers Network. In March 2024, he participated with the documentary Lo, directed by Thanasis Vassiliou at the Agora Docs in Progress of the 26th Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival.
Dafni Kalafati - Filmiki productions
Dafni Kalafati has studied Intercultural Education and Film and holds a Master’s Degree in Art Therapy from the Buenos Aires School of Fine Arts. She has filmed documentaries in all five continents and has worked as a documentary producer in the international market for several years. Her debut documentary Oneironauts (2009) won the Best Experimental Documentary Award at the Toronto HotDocs Festival. Today, she is the head of the documentary department of FILMIKI S.A., where she specializes in the co-development of international projects. Currently she is producing with Serendipity Point Films the film Maya and Samar, a co-production between Greece and Canada and the feature length documentary Super Paradise, a Greek -German co-production, with which she participated in the Agora Docs in Progress of the 26th Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival.
Leonidas Liambeys - Long Run productions
Leonidas Liambeys has over 16 years of production and research experience on national and international co-productions, primarily in non-fiction films & TV productions, but also multimedia exhibitions and social media campaigns. As Associate and Line Producer, he has worked on co-productions with HBO Europe, NatGeo, Eurimages, CE Media, Greek Film Centre (GFC) and others. As a producer he has completed award-winning documentaries with the support of the Greek National Broadcaster (ERT), GFC and EKOME and is currently producing a dramatized doc series for SKAI TV, as well as several feature docs, one of which is The Secret of the Owl, which won top awards at both the 2021 Pitching and 2024 Agora Docs in Progress of the TiDF, and another one that took part at IMPACT Lab at WEMW 2024. He received the 2014 Focal Award for best use of Archive Footage in a History Production and the above films have been selected for CPH:DOX, Visions du Réel, European Film Awards and others.
Participation in forums and talks
Thessaloniki Film Festival will take part in a series of pivotal meetings and talks with the international film market.
Congratulations to all Greek productions
Thessaloniki International Film Festival would like to congratulate all Greek films that made their way to this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
We wish all participants the best of luck!
Elise Jalladeau is a jury member of L’Œil d’or award
The Festival’s General Director, Elise Jalladeau, is joining some of the most acclaimed personalities of the world cinema, as a jury member of the prestigious L’Œil d’or - Best Documentary Award of the 77th Cannes Film Festival. French filmmaker Nicolas Philibert, director of smash box-office hit To Be and to Have (2002) and recipient of the Berlinale’s Golden Bear for the film On the Adamant (2023), will serve as the jury’s president. The 16th Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival had hosted a tribute to the French filmmaker. The jury, apart from Nicolas Philibert and Elise Jalladeau, is composed of the French-Iranian actress Mina Kavani, an official guest at the 63rd Thessaloniki International Film Festival, the French-Senegalese film director Dyana Gaye and the Canadian film director Francis Legault. The L’Œil d’or award, accompanied by a 5,000-euro cash prize, will be bestowed on May 24th to a film taking part in any of the Cannes Film Festival’s sections, namely the official selection, the Directors’ Fortnight, and the International Critics’ Week. Prolific filmmakers, such as Agnès Varda and Patricio Guzmán, are among the award’s past winners.
The reception for Greek cinema
A reception for the promotion of Greek cinema to the international film industry professionals attending the Cannes Film Festival and the celebration of all Greek films screened in this year’s Festival, will be held on May 19th within the framework of the Marché du Film. As every year, this reception serves as an opportunity for the networking of the Greek filmmakers at the most important film market of the work, the development of new projects and films, the search for coproductions, financing and new collaborations, as well as the highlighting of Greece as an ideal location for the shooting of international productions. The reception is co-hosted by: Thessaloniki Film Festival, Greek Film Centre (GFC), National Centre of Audiovisual Media and Communication (EKOME), and Drama International Short Film Festival (DISFF).
Greek pavilion
The Greek pavilion located at the number 132 of the Village International Riviera, alongside hundreds of national pavilions from all over the world, will serve as the main activity focus for all Greek filmmakers, offering a working space to all Greek film industry professionals and ideal conditions for meetings and networking. The pavilion will showcase the full spectrum of actions taken by the Greek cinema community, while the workforce of the four institutions (TiFF, GFC, EKOME, DISFF) will be available for the providing of any necessary assistance.
With the support of the:
