23rd Thessaloniki Documentary Festival [24/6 – 4/7/2021]
The Greek docs of the 23rd Thessaloniki Documentary Festival
72 short and feature Greek documentaries will be screened in the 23rd Thessaloniki Documentary Festival that will take place in open-air theaters in Thessaloniki and online. The documentaries will be screened in the sections International Competition Feature Length, Newcomers International Competition and >>Film Forward International Competition, as well as in the Open Horizons, From screen to Screen and Platform sections.
Realizing the difficulties of producing documentaries, but also the additional obstacles caused by the pandemic, the Festival, supporting the Greek documentary, will give to each Greek film that will be screened in the program of the 23rd TDF, a projection rental fee.
Human stories, well-known artists, our life in the era of the pandemic, the refugee crisis, the issues that are important to the LGBTQI+ community are some of the themes explored in this year’s Greek documentaries.
The films of the three competition sections and the Open Horizons section will be screened online and in open-air theaters in Thessaloniki. The online screenings for each film will be available for users in Greece. The films of the sections Platform and From screen to Screen will be screened online, for users in Greece.
We present the Greek documentaries of the 23rd TDF:
International Competition Feature Length
Days and Nights of Demetra K. by Eva Stefani
Dimitra is a sex worker and enjoys her job. She used to own one of the oldest brothels in Athens. The film draws a portrait of Dimitra by observing her for twelve years. Inevitably, the camera chronicles the way Athens is affected by the recent financial crisis. Getting to know Dimitra, we are confronted with stereotypes about sex and personal choice. Time and love are the main themes of this film.
Golden Dawn a Public Affair by Angélique Kourounis
What sort of action to adopt against nazism, fascism and the extreme right?
Can Democracy still eradicate them once and for all without bending its own principles? How to fight back? Is the solution to be given by the courts? A political blockade from all political parties? A media boycott? Raising social awareness? A better education in school? Or is it a more physical resistance? The trial which is even more important than the one of Nuremberg is the back bone of this documentary.
Through the Glass, Three Acts by Christos Barbas
In May 2020, during the first lockdown in the country, in a nursing home in Agios Stefanos, north of Athens, for two months, the staff and guests experienced an additional and simultaneous confinement after sealing the unit for preventive purpose. The project was unique at national and European level, perhaps even global until then.
Newcomers International Competition
Gabriela – The German with the Bicycle by Dominikos Ignatiadis
Gabriela is the narrative of a woman born in after-the-war Germany and her overwhelming need to live, love and matter. Her son, a couple of years after her death, throws a deep inquiry into the diary, the letters, the people and the places she once knew. A trip between Stuttgart, Germany and Alexandria, Greece, with an underlying question pending: "what kind of life is this?" Hand in hand during this trip, her son is trying to find peace with his always fleeing mother, "The German with the bicycle".
Invisible by Marianna Kakaounaki
Ebubekir and Gonca are accused of being terrorists. After three years on the run, they
manage to escape from their home country Turkey to Greece. They are now free but they must come to terms with an unbearable loss. Ahmet, once a doctor, is spending his days in a secret location with other Turks who were also forced into exile. With time though, he is torn between living as a fugitive and the need of belonging to a new country.
Made in Vain by Michael Klioumis
Personal demons, ongoing struggle with the mirror, sacrifices, goals, bottled up feelings, hardcore training and diet shape the everyday life of Body Builders. Their struggle to become professional Body Builders is endless and excruciating, the competition is big. All the months of intense preparation led to a few moments on stage against the judges where they show off the body they have been building for so long. Some of them call it iron sport, a lifestyle, a vanity and to some others Body Building is a religion. All of them agree though that once a bodybuilder, always a bodybuilder.
>>Film Forward International Competition
Memento by Nikos Ziogas
The film follows the local Easter tradition and festivities in Giromeri, a remote village located in the mountainous Epirus region in northern Greece. Situated near the Greek-Albanian borders, Giromeri is a traditional settlement with a declining population that today numbers around 50 permanent residents. Nearby lies the historic 14th-century Giromeri Monastery, which receives a large number of visitors - pilgrims and tourists alike – throughout the year. Combining rare archival material and on-site observation, the documentary examines various aspects of contemporary living, focusing on the Easter festivities and especially on a unique Easter Monday’s custom.
The Oleanders by Paola Revenioti
Paola, Betty and Eva are three trans* women in their 60s who have known each other for more than forty years. All three of them started making their living early in their youth as sex workers in Athens, Greece. In “The Oleanders” Betty Vakalidou, Eva Koumarianou and Paola Revenioti revisit all the different places in the city where they used to work, socialize, get harassed or arrested by the cops, fight for their rights, have fun and find love. The unapologetic, humorous, and empowering discussion of Eva, Betty and Paola is a history of Athens as well as a history of sexualities of the Mediterranean region and beyond.
Open Horizons
A Beautiful Day by Danis Karaisaridis, Yorgos Paterakis
How can schools support the building of a future-proof, "different" society? This film explores two self-organised preschool educational projects in Greece, which use a combination of alternative educational methods. “The Little Tree” in Thessaloniki operates on the values of libertarian education and experiential learning. In the forest school “Little World” on Lesbos island everyday local and refugee children play together and learn from each other.
Alastor by Menios Carayannis
Over the ages, people stand helpless before the uncontrollable force, of the rendering of evil. Despite the establishment of laws and moral values, the notion of vendetta remains alive. Reason is rarely in a position to tame the demon of revenge, who in ancient Greece had a name: Alastor. The film looks into the needs and roots of revenge. Lively renditions from ancient Greek tragedies intertwine with current events and experiences, looking for the answer to the troubling question: Why do we kill each other?
Back to Earth by Chryssa Tzelepi, Akis Kersanidis
Hector Mavridis is a ceramist. Dedicated in recent years to his ongoing work "clods" he explores the imprint of the primordial form in public space. The clods he collects from the plowed field are his raw material. Their shape, the smell of wet soil evoke memories. He observes them, touches them. Wants to transform them. He works with fire, water, time. His body transfers the energy and his soul the deep blue color. Now the clods have no weight, hovering over the wheatfield along with memories and a piece of the identity of their creator, Hector.
Corrections by Theodore Scrivanos
Corrections delves into the day-to-day life of the Greek National Opera Ballet’s dancers. It showcases how intricate and collaborative is the work of choreographers, répétiteurs, dancers, costume and set designers. The film illuminates the ritual of the choreographic process, the gathering and organization of movement into order and pattern: rehearsals, repetition, daily routines, bodies are registered in an anthropological manner.
Dark Vein by Stratis Vogiatzis, Yorgos Samantas
From the WWI military cemeteries in Bitola (N. Macedonia), we move to the banks of Danube in Novi Sad (Serbia), and then to the mines of Kozani (Greece), seeking through a Balkan travelogue, the dark vein that runs through them and has defined their fate. The film explores the parallel past and present of the three locations, evoking these traumas, and juxtaposing them with the violent extraction from the environment in the present day. The narrator is the landscape and its sounds, as it poetically reveals the dark and violent anthropogenic inscriptions upon itself.
KΕ•HA•'JAS – Man of the Land by Giorgos Komakis
"Ke•ha•'jas - Man of the Land" is an ethnographic documentary filmed in Lemnos, the most lowland of the Aegean islands. The Lemnian farmer, Ke•ha•'jas - during the oral tradition of the place that gave birth to him -was a momentous and turbulent concept, mostly misunderstood. The documentary, through the narrative word of the Ke•ha•'jas family and their living experience, comes to cover the already existing void of official memory and local history for the existence of the group itself.
Kroussonas: Οn Satan's Trail by Vicky Arvelaki
War is not a fairy tale. History is not always epic. People's precious microhistories of everyday life lead up to what we call major events. Kroussonas, a village in the eastern side of Psiloriti mountain in Crete, was the nourishing mother of the guerilla group of Satanas. Who were these flammable souls during the Second World War, who left their mark - while resisting the enemy - in their homeland?
Lakmos by Panagiotis Papoutsis
Nikos Gkizas, Dimitris Geitonas and Elias Balafas, make the same appointment every year at the same time, on the foot of mount Lakmos, at the village of Syrrako, to retrace the same, familiar, ascending route together with their animals, in altitudes beyond 1700 metres. They consciously chose the life of the cattle breeder, as they believe they belong with the mountain. The story also puts in the frame, apart from Giorgos Vaitsis, Konstantinos Antonis, Kostas Gerodimos, Vassilis Dodoros, also, another character, who is the most unpredictable and seductive: mount Lakmos.
Latin noir by Andreas Apostolidis
In the land of the Zapatistas, Augusto Pinochet and Fidel Castro, what are the stories Latin Americans have been telling to confront their troubled past? Latin Noir travels to five Latin American cities, to meet with famous crime novelists Leonardo Padura (Havana), Luis Sepulveda (Santiago), Paco Ignacio Taibo II (Mexico City), Santiago
Roncagliolo (Lima), Guillermo Orsi and Claudia Pineiro (Buenos Aires). Through their work, we discover a unique genre of flourishing literature that is political, dark and above all concerned with a sense of extreme disorder created by the state’s involvement in crime.
Lyaeus by Pantelis Frantzis
In a small village, surrounded by sea, old sailors prepare for the winter ahead. Their ritual of meat harvesting still echoes the visit of a long-forgotten god.
Newborn Sky by Giannis Xydas, Tasos Konstantopoulos
After the liberation of Athens from the German occupation in 1944, a new era followed in Greece. As a result, conflicts broke out between the people who fought against the Germans and those who collaborated with them and the British army. After the military defeat of the first ones, the signing of the Treaty of Varkiza signaled the start of the White Terror. Houses were set on fire, people were raped, beaten, murdered, imprisoned and exiled. All this pushed the persecuted fighters to go up to the mountains and form the base for DSE, in which a lot of women participated.
Reduced to Ashes by Nikos Papangelis
“Anastenaria” is an age-old ritual still performed in a small number of villages in Northern Greece, a journey of transcendence and purification – from lighting the fire to dancing over the hot coals, until there are only ashes left.
Sacralisons by Olia Verriopoulou
The change of seasons. The coming of spring. Its effects on both body and culture. So many ways to celebrate renewal in nature. What remains today of the Rite of Spring?
What Happened in Larissa? A Music Story About Nat Birchall by Dimitris Papapdopoulos, Ioannis Kolaxizis
Nat Birchall is one of the most important representatives of the British Jazz scene. Costas Voultsidis is the inspirer of Duende Jazz Bar in Larissa, in 2009. The documentary traces their paths and focuses on the creation of the legendary album 'Nat Birchall Quintet: Live In Larissa', which was globally accepted by audiences and critics in 2014. It is an album that became the reason for a deep human relationship and created new perspectives in the career of the unconventional artist Nat Birchall. It was the year that many music lovers wondered: "Where is Larissa? What happened in Larissa?"
Platform
2 Miles from Home by Julia Speropoulos
This creative documentary focuses on the period during 1914-1923, peaking at the arrival of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk at Samsun on May 19th, 1919. That was the climax of the genocide of the Greeks of the Black Sea, killing more than 353,000 Pontic Greeks. In this documentary, the poorer, uprooted, full-of-hardships survivors, their descendants, historians, and genocide activists speak about the genocidal crimes. Through new and archive footage, sketches, archive photos and newspapers, this documentary provokes the discovery of the truth beyond denial.
A Line Turns into a Letter by Antonis Spanomarkidis
Alkis who draws with his head. When Alkis draws, his brush becomes his tongue
and the color becomes his voice. Alkis through his mother's words and the director’s view.
A Story in 14 Words by Eirini Steirou
In this hybrid first person account, a Greek islander opens up to his filmmaker granddaughter about his violent coming-of-age as refugee, warrior and political prisoner in North Africa during WWII. Young Nikolaos Plakas fled starvation from the Greek island of Ikaria. He survived from refugee camps and a deadly shipwreck, in order to fight against the Germans in North Africa and to be later imprisoned for his antiroyalist political views in military concentration camps. A first-person narrative, in Ikaria’s local dialect, interrupted by fragments of war footage and home movie imagery.
Together Alone by Manos Papadakis
Six survival stories in COVID-19 quarantine. A documentary about the first time people were banned from traveling in peacetime.
An Idea Is All We Are by Emmanouela Saroukou
As time goes by and life is changing, an elderly couple Captain Manolis along with his wife Kalliopi, in the Greek island of Kalymnos, are about to spend a whole different Easter, due to the pandemic crisis.
Bread and a Blanket by Dimitris Gkrintzos
It’s Monday, the 13th of December 1943, the small town of Kalavryta is set on fire by the occupation army of Nazi Germany while the entire male population is being gathered on a nearby hill and shot dead. This war crime will go down in history, along with the massacre of Acqui Division, as the largest mass killing in Greece during WWII. Three men who witnessed these events as kids, locked up with the women, children and elderly people in Kalavryta’s primary school, recall this traumatic experience.
Carols by Jenny Tsiropoulou
Nikos does not get to experience human contact, nor the joy of saving lives. He studied
medicine but went on to become a forensic medical examiner. The cadavers he examines whisper their stories. As he grows older and his kids grow up, his fear of death weighs heavier. It’s a rainy New Year’s Eve, and the morgue is full. Nikos is hopeful. Will the children stop by to sing carols and loosen death’s grip?
Corfu the Island of Pancake by Spiros Badios and Spiros Paipetis
Corfu is one of the northern and most populated islands of the Mediterranean Sea. The marks from harsh times still remain in some corners of its historic town center. Which was the important ingredient that shaped traditions and mostly helped the survival of not only Corfiots but people around the world through history? Pancakes are a round viand that is prepared with a basic mixture mostly of flour and water while archeological data shows that it might be the most ancient and widespread type of food with its structure and shape to vary from place to place.
Dancing Contact by Giannis Adrimis and Marguerite Caillaux
Thérèse Vandamme was one of the first instructors to introduce body contact in Greece. With influences from the theatre, evolving from classic ballet to modern dance, intensely studying movement while considering the body to be a temple, exploring the roots and the primal desire of movement, knowledgeable in alternative therapies of various techniques, studying for decades the sounds and feelings of the body and the voice she has managed to create a very special form of teaching and of dance working with small groups of individuals, professions and social backgrounds, and has been sharing her art for over three decades.
Daylighting by Ioannis Koutouzis
A wall from the past opens the discussion for the restoration of buried rivers of Athens back to light, a process known as "Daylighting". The film follows the course of the liquid element that has silently existed for years within the city, in an effort to protect the last natural rivers of Attica. It is revealing part of our collective urban memory, the path of the man of the cities, the one who has forgotten that he is part of a wider ecosystem.
Grand tour a film in-debt(ed) by Fotis Begklis
Grand Tour is inspired on the writings of 18th century European travelers to Greece. Through accounts of these travelers, we can evaluate from a post-colonial perspective the developments that occurred in Greek society as a product of the Greek revolution in 1821. These developments led to successive accumulation of debt, defaults, and growing external dependence. The sub heading of the title of the film refers to the classical debt of the modern western world to the ancient Greek culture and the accumulated financial debt of Greece to Europe and suggests an ambivalent association between these two distinct debts.
Dimitris, Nikos… and the Uncertainty Principle by Costas Aenian
Dr Maria Delivoria – Papadopoulos, the “Mother” of Neonatology by Antonis Kyritsanis
A personal narration of Maria Delivoria - Papadopoulos, known in the medical world as the "Mother" of neonatology, from her childhood, before the Second World War, until today. The survival in Greece of the German occupation and the civil war, the studies, the immigration to the USA, the brilliant scientific career, the recognition. A fictional life full of challenges and dilemmas as she remembers it. These always with the mind in Ithaca.
Out of Kythnos by Christos Giannakopoulos and Avrilios Karakostas
Christos and Lia live in Kythnos. They make their living from the sea, which they love so much. They are together when the sea is calm, and they remain together even when they come back with empty nets. A case that's more and more often these days. Envisioning a better world for us and the generations to come, they struggle for sustainable fishing and living seas. The documentary was produced as part of the Fish Forward campaign for sustainable seafood production.
Here Lies Being Itself by Paraskevi Antoniou
The enclosed atmosphere of 1989 Albania is interwoven with the parallel monologues of three people who crossed the border reaching Greece.
In the Houses of Memory by Vaggelis Loukisas
Within the framework of practical training in the course ‘Architectural analysis of traditional buildings’ in the Architectural school of the National Technical University of Athens, 250 students and their teachers came in October 2016 to Andros for five days and studied in groups 19 villages of the island presenting a unique architectural interest.
Iolas Wonderland by Christopher Antoniadis
The docudrama ‘Iolas Wonderland’ is the search for the lost dream through the life of a man who believed he could achieve the impossible. A talented pianist, great ballet dancer and impresario of art, Alexandre Iolas who lived like in a fairytale but died like an ancient Greek tragedy hero, can inspire, 33 years after his death, a young artist. Realism and surrealism entwine together in a tapestry of feelings and emotions, light shines through and artistic creation is the one and only redemption.
Is Walking Art? by Christos Ioannidis
Can you make art by walking? Can you walk a piece of art as a painter creates a painting or a director makes a movie? What is walking art? Does it produce pieces of art or intangible experiences? In 2019 a Walking Art conference was organized in Prespa Lake. Artists and art theorists from around the world meet, talk and walk while they discover the environment, time and their bodies. Walking is used either as a tool, or as performance, or as a mean of reinventing space and time. The protagonists conversate with the film audience, in the magnificent landscape.
Letters by Anastasis Dallis
The film tells 4 true personal stories; the stories of 4 people in Greece 2020 who, for several reasons, haven’t been open with their parents about their sexual preferences. These stories are presented through the anonymous letters they write to their parents, as a way of expressing their thoughts. The film explores the subjects of homophobia and acceptance in the context of the contemporary Greek family.
Little Mother by Anita Nwecho, Eleni Kassimou
A personal, even humorous account of Ataa, a child bride from Syria, who is now in Athens, separated from her husband and children, determined to realize her dream of becoming a lawyer. Produced by GlobalGirl Media Greece, a media activist collective of young Greek and refugee/migrant women.
Lying Upon a Rock by Spyros Kavvadias
A documentary about Lazaretto, the desert islet near the city of Corfu that functioned for centuries as a quarantine station as well as a place of execution for political prisoners during the Greek Civil War. The identity of the place is approached through fragmentary testimonies and original sources.
M 12 by Yiannis Lascaris
M12 stands for the age category, over 85 years old, in veterans judo games. The only
representative in this category, worldwide is Mr Nikos Klouvatos. Being already 90 years old, he is still training three times a week.
Maqabir by Manolis Sfakianakis
In this documentary, we follow two parallel stories. Two epidemics strike the same city and evolve in tandem, one echoing the other. Coronavirus in 2020 and the plague in 1592. Citizens of Heraklion talk about their experiences during the first quarantine (March – May 2020), due to Covid-19. A venetian officer sends his report to Venice describing the misfortunes that befell them due to the plague which struck Candia (Heraklion) in 1592 and lasted for 30 months. The ruminations of the narrator – director, accompany the two stories, in the form of a personal diary.
Natural Life, Natural Building by Tilemachos Manos
“Natural Life, Natural Building” is a documentary that points out the personal experiences of people who build their own houses with natural materials as soil, straw, woods. The protagonists try to familiarize us with their mindset of recycling, the conscious living, caring for the environment and to point out how the modern
product line and consuming habits have a negative impact to our planet. Concluding, they talk about how the solution can be found in the acts of voluntarism and solidarity. They explain how people can assist one another in order to reach their goals by building strong bonds and friendships.
No Heroes by George Vitsaropoulos
The wheelchair basketball team of the Maroussi-Athletic Association of Physically Handicapped People allowed a film crew to follow its proceedings, from training to games and transports for 2018-19 season. The members of the team talk about the sport, the conditions under which it takes place in Greece and their interaction with the wheelchair. The result is ‘No Heroes’, which is mainly an observation exercise on the dynamic relationship of space, body and technology, in wheelchair basketball. The documentary focuses on the basic level of assemblage, hoping that observation will turn to viewpoint on the big screen.
Ore Remembrance by Dimitris Kalfakis
At the northeastern end of Mykonos lies the area Metalia (Mines). The name was adopted because of the mines of the American company Mycobar, which operated in the general area between 1955 and 1983, and primarily mined for barite. Today, the ruins of its facilities are the sole leftovers of that period. Through field observation, personal testimonies and archival material, the film shows up the important role played by the mine in the local community and restores the industrial heritage of the island.
Our ABC’s by Zoanna Yfantidou
How did we learn to write and read? How much playing and how much seriousness does it take to acquire one of the most basic skills in life? This film presents the process of learning writing and reading in the first grade of elementary school. A teacher that explains and shows each letter with never-ending patience and love and 13 students that draw fishes in order to write correctly, disagree, laugh, have troubles, try their best for every syllable, and concentrate on their target. Little adventures in the classroom with pencils, erasers and straight (or not) lines.
Being Present by Yorgos Avgeropoulos
Whilst still healing from the wounds caused by the ten year long economic depression, Greece has to confront the biggest public health crisis of recent history. Political decisions and behind-the-scenes manipulations are closely observed and juxtaposed with the struggles of the people who bear the brunt of this new crisis. Yorgos Avgeropoulos witnessing the Greek example, showcases a universal debate: The free-market economy has shown its limits and a new social contract is urgently needed.
Portraits in Confinement by students of the School of Film of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Seven film students make a short documentary portrait of their flatmates, or of themselves, during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Seven Minutes of Soul by Panos Vlahos
During the first modern Olympic Games in 1896 in Athens, one of the most legendary
achievements in the history of international sports took place. Spyros Louis won the first official Marathon, leaving everyone speechless and causing great enthusiasm in Greece and abroad. The documentary ‘Seven Minutes of Soul’ follows Panos Vlachos’ attempt to explore the exact conditions that led to Spyros Louis’ feat, to try him- self in these, but also to shed some light on the most controversial Marathon to date.
Shipwreck Industry LTD. by Alexander Sikalias
Costas, a 56-year-old acetylene welder working in heavy shipyard industry since 1981,
struggles to survive the economic crisis that destabilizes Greece and led the shipyard on the verge of bankruptcy. An independent documentary that approaches the problem of the collapsing Greece's Shipyards from a human-centered angle, depicting the situation that is hidden behind faceless companies, numbers and superficial events.
Should They Stay or Should They Go? by Christina Siganidou
The film follows the efforts of the Citizens Movement of Thessaloniki, who are against the removal of the antiquities that have been discovered during the construction works for the Venizelos Metro station in Thessaloniki city center. The course of the journey runs 15 months from the foundation of the Movement until Christmas 2020. Apart from amateur videos throughout that period, filming has been conducted during the second Covid-19 lockdown, which imposed other conditions such as online interviews and recordings of the Movement’s online meetings.
Sotos, Painter Forever Active by Giannis Fragoulis
The life and work of the painter Sotos Zachariadis, who signs as Sotos, who has been active in Thessaloniki, in the rest of Greece and abroad. Along with the reference to his artistic activity, as well as in his educational activities, we are referring to the artistic movement of Thessaloniki from the mid-1980s until today, with the various collaborations and activities of the painter. Friends and associates talk about him, we are watching his birthday, approaching its human dimension. An event puts us in the process from the idea to the realization of his works.
Substitute Teacher by Aristidis Agathos
Vassilis Kyriakidis has been a substitute teacher for ten years. For the last 5, he has been teaching in Fournoi island, out of choice, not necessity. The fragile "normality" of a substitute's life, the uncertainty, the nomadism, the loneliness, the talent in packaging, the sincere love for children, are part of our narrative.
Super 8 by Anna Poupou
An amateur film for the cinema of amateurs. Why the home movies aesthetics and the
materiality of super 8 appeal to us in the digital media era? The persistence for autonomous filmmaking and the collectives built around super 8 creation, through film clubs, magazines, shared craftmanship and cinephilia.
The Age of the Denial of Death by Christos Daniilidis, Michalis Malandrakis
The Age of the denial of Death is a chronological documentary based on seven communicating chapters and mostly based on interviews with top Greek rock bands. It is a social and historical analysis of the Greek anglophone rock scene from the 1990s until 2020. In the midst of a variety of chained reactions, social outbursts and parallel realities, rock in Greece refuses to die and fights in order to put a pin on the world's music map, it is living in the age of the denial of death.
The Chords of South by Nickolas Tsiamantanis
An experiential recording of labor in the community service programs of OAED in Volos. The main protagonists are the workers who participate in these programs and consequently the employees of the municipal cleaning service. We watch people affected by the financial crisis, middle-aged, long-term unemployed who are paid very little money, while claiming contract renewal and permanent employment. Through tragicomic situations, we capture the neo-Greek of insecurity, toil and Piki Piki Ram.
The Flowers Are Gone by Ilma Tyrbetari, Alexandros Kantoros
In a small village called Drisht there are left very few people due to immigration. One of them is an elderly woman who is living her reality away from those she loves the most. Although the village and its people seem abandoned, nature is blossoming and enriching their lives.
The Journey of Askavlos by Yorgos Arvanitis
A journey through the Aegean Sea, where old meets new, and Askavlos, the ancient Greek bagpipe, is being revived in the hands of musicians, dedicated to restoring and maintaining an ancient tradition. The instrument slowly but surely finds its way to the city, where modern musicians bring it into the contemporary music scene. The viewer becomes a witness to this revival and, alongside the protagonists, discovers a thing almost lost: the customs and an ethos of a people of another era, and an oral tradition that was once a way of life, preserved over the centuries.
The Muddy River of Baasim by Thomas Sideris
A story that began in August 2013 in Syria and is still going on. The poetic words of a refugee who grew up wandering. The human river of refugees and the river-passage as a reference axis for the wandering bodies. Defenseless bodies in the space, wrapped in barbed wire, under the supervision of police and military guards and thermal cameras. Nomadic refugees in the space in unexpected housing conditions.
The Shore Across by Semeli Safou
The Shore Across explores the filmmaker’s family’s displaced past and the unchanging beauty of the Island where she is from. Filmed on the island of Ikaria, childhood memories are connected to the present refugee crisis and to the uncertainty of the future through the empathetic ebbing and flowing of history.
The Unlost Homeland by Eftychia Fragou
The documentary follows the story of 12 Greeks from Constantinople who lived through
the Istanbul pogrom in 1955. It's the only pogrom of such magnitude to have taken place in modern history not in time of war but during peacetime. Utilizing fast-paced montage, and innovative animated text on screen, the viewer is transported to an imaginary table, where everyone is sitting together without knowing each other talks, answering and complementing each other. One of them returns home after 46 years with his grandson. Because this is not the end and history is mostly the stories of the people who wrote history.
Utopias in Athens by Ioannis Koutouzis
The film explores a utopia that activates a solidary life, a dispersal abroad, a nostalgia for home, but also a return to the substantive – far from political gab and pomposity – that points the way to an answer based on a social life, lyrical language and active solidarity. A documentary about a certainty that utopia is no longer a dream, but an uncompromising answer to daily challenges.
Where Dead People Used to Live by Marios Kleftakis, Isavella Alopoudi
Cairo, Egypt: a mega city of 25 million residents came out of another political crisis in 2011 following the well-known "Arab Spring". Life in the streets now flows. Noise, traffic, people are looking for ways to make a living. Next to the city center, a vast cemetery has become a shelter for the homeless. Almost half a million people live among graves and the dead, trying to survive in the quietest neighbourhood, known as Arafa, the city of the dead.
While You Can Still Learn About Stone by Argyris Karagiorgas
An exploration of the traditional craft of stonemasonry at Tzoumerka, in a narrative which moves around the people of the 2-month Craftsmen apprenticeship and the 12-day Stonemasonry Workshop, which the Itinerant Workshop for the Traditional Building Techniques ''Boulouki'', a group of four young architects and one civil engineer, realized in the area of Plaka from September to October 2019.
Who Is Eugenio Barba by Magdalini Remoundou
Actors, directors, theatre theorists demonstrate the man that reconfigured the Art of Theatre. An account on the world-renowned director and theatre theorist Eugenio Barba’s approach to the theatrical art. In July, 2019, Εugenio Barba was conferred an honorary doctorate at the University of Peloponnese. A three-day conference – homage to the prominent theatre practitioner was held concurrently at the European Cultural Centre of Delphi, where theatre academics expounded on the art and the technique of Εugenio Barba and the theatre group he created in Denmark, ODIN Teatret. Simoultaneously, Teatret ODIN’s troupe staged performances and workshops.
Zabeta by Elissavet Sfyri & Sofia Sfyri
The film is a glimpse of our grandmother’s life, as she tells the story of how she was forced to move to Canada by her husband, then had to flee back to Greece, got divorced and remarried in the 60’s. Zabeta is an exploration of stereotype and alienation, and a small personal historical archive of patriarchy, sexism, education, conflict and religion in Greece, investigating how they affect us to this day even. The documentary questions narrative as it plays on the line of reality and scripted reality, filmed in the style of how our grandmother would have filmed it.
From screen to Screen
Yiannis Adamakos. Art Is a Single Thing by Michalis Lykoudis
The art critic and curator Christoforos Marinos, wrote for the painter: "What is the essential in an art like that of Adamakos? The quest for the void, the artist's
persistent effort to depict the void, forms part of the uncertainty we were talking about. The void here is the essential... There were mornings when he looked up, through the back window of his studio, shared at the gray doorway of the building across the street and imagined the painting ancestors suspended in the dawn. "Thank you, thank you" would chant. He was grateful to them all -all the painters who had toiled to vanquish Fear and despair, to illustrate the void."
Spetses '21, History Crossroad by Panos A. Thomaidis
On the eve of the 200 years of the revolution of 1821, the people of Spetses meet and
converse, conveying to us the versions of history as it has been saved through oral tradition, but also as rewritten through the constant and thorough study of the evidence. Against the backdrop of the island and the surrounding sea, descendants of pioneers of the revolution, prominent, shipowners, but also warriors, unite their voices with local historians, guardians of the valuable evidence of history, successors of popular traditions they spread the history piece by piece like a timeless pebble of Spetses.
Walking in One Heel by Nicole Alexandropoulos
From the province to Athens. From school to the sidewalk. From boy to girl. Anna walks between pain and joy, rejection and acceptance, conservatism and liberation. She walks fast in one heel. The film explores the life of Anna Kouroupou, a trans woman and sex worker and captures unique moments with her mother. In a baroque setting, she talks to Yorgos Pirpassopoulos about everything that defined her as a woman. At the same time, she shares her thoughts with Nicole Alexandropoulos, in a soul confession about what it means to be a trans woman in Greece today.
