With a total of 65,000 spectators and visitors in all its actions and events -physical and online screenings, masterclasses, open discussions, exhibitions, immersive screenings and parties among others- the 27th Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival, held from 6 to 16 March, called it a wrap.
This year’s TiDF hosted a great number of premieres, exciting talks and special events, and welcomed internationally acclaimed artists, among them the great French director Nicolas Philibert, to whom the Festival bestowed an honorary Golden Alexander award and renowned American filmmaker and photographer Lauren Greenfield.
This year more than 261 full-length and short documentaries were screened in seven cinemas around Thessaloniki. It is worth mentioning that 73 films had their global premiere in Thessaloniki, 40 their international and 11 their European premiere. In addition, 159 docs were screened at Festival’s online platform. The online screenings of the Platform+ section carried on until March 21st, offering the chance to a larger audience to discover the best docs of the recent Greek production.
Greek cinema was prominent and in this year’s edition, with sold out screenings, vivid audience participation in the talks with Greek film directors and an increased interest on behalf of international press correspondents and film industry professionals for this year’s Greek production, which earned a total of 12 awards and special mentions.
Within the framework of Agora’s developmental actions a total of 661 meetings between 540 professionals of the film industry from Greece and abroad were held. We hope that these networking meetings will soon give birth to new projects, scripts and films. Moreover, Agora hosted a discussion for the production of XR films, in the framework of its new initiative AGORA XR Lab, one workshop on impact strategies and four Agora Talks, with themes such as investigative documentary filmmaking and digital platforms for documentaries.
The lineup of events during the eleven Festival days includes discussions, a universally accessible screening, an open to the public podcast special hearing, book presentations and immersive screenings. The films and the installation of the Immersive section were attended by 2.036 viewers, while more than 1.950 people listened to the podcasts of the 27th TiDF’s podcast section.
The 27th Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival was held with the support of the Hellenic Parliament, the Ministry of Culture, the Partnership Agreement of the Central Macedonia Regional Operational Program, the National Recovery and Resilience Plan “Greece 2.0”, the MEDIA programme, the Ministry of Tourism and ERT. COSMOTE TV was the Grand Sponsor of the Festival, proving once again its support towards quality cinema. The Festival was happy to have for a second year PPC Group as its Strategic Partner, and expresses its gratitude for the trust in its vision and work. Valuable was also the support of Alpha Bank, the Festival’s accessibility sponsor, Aegean, the Festival’s official air-carrier, Fischer, the Audience Awards sponsor, and Jameson. We would like to thank for their contribution the Hellenic Film and Audiovisual Center - Creative Greece (ΕΚKΟΜΕD), Masoutis S.A., Savvikos, Ktima Kir-Yianni, Mediterranean Palace, ON Residence, Fraport, Interbus, Volvo Papadopoulos S.A. We want to thank the City of Thessaloniki, the Municipality Neapoli–Sykies, the Municipality of Pavlos Melas, the Metropolitan Organisation of Museums of Visual Arts of Thessaloniki – MOMus, 235, the Ports Public Authority and the Port of Thessaloniki.
We are eagerly waiting to meet again at the 4th Evia Film Project, which will be held June 17-21, 2025.
