The Non Catalog of the 24th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival is dedicated to the fiftieth anniversary of the first broadcast of the legendary BBC series Ways of Seeing, which was conceived and presented by the emblematic thinker, writer and artist John Berger. Both the texts and the design of this publication pay tribute to Berger’s main wish to “liberate images from the fetters of a timid gaze and create a new condition of observation, criticism, and understanding of images and life itself,” in the words of Orestis Andreadakis. In her text, Syrago Tsiara examines “Just What Is It That Still Makes John Berger’s Ways of Seeing So Different, So Appealing Today?, while the other contributions attempt a novel condition of critical reading of film representations, with an emphasis on the archival image. On the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of the Asia Minor Catastrophe, Dimitris P. Sotiropoulos returns to Smyrna in the early 20th century, whereas Giannis Smoilis “revisit” Basil Maros’s documentary The Aegean Tragedy. Geli Mademli approaches the term “found footage” using the practice of translation as an analytical tool, and Glykeria Basdeki revisits the films of the Motherland, I See You program for the preservation and restoration of Greek film heritage as gestures of love. Aris Dimokidis looks back at the history of audio documentaries, Epaminondas Christophilopoulos argues that the images of the past contribute to the process of foresight, Dimitris Kerkinos scrutinizes the unique aesthetics of the Latvian auteur Laila Pakalina, and, lastly, Despina Pavlaki walks us through “The Compressed Reality of Virpi Suutari.”
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