67th TIFF: Stavros Markoulakis directs the spots of this year's edition

The four spots for the 67th Thessaloniki International Film Festival are directed by Stavros Markoulakis, drawing inspiration from the desert, the theme of this year’s major tribute.

Four deserts – of earth, water, air and fire – and four mythical creatures born from them, Pegasus, the Mermaid, the Panther and the Phoenix, form four fragments of a story about celestial bodies drifting around the Sun, losing and finding one another again a million years apart. Titled A Story of Heavenly Bodies Floating Around the Sun in Four Phases & a Million Years Apart, this series places these mythical creatures at the heart of a story about memory, encounters and eternal return.

Let’s take a look at the Festival spots:

Pegasus: https://youtu.be/Tf1HFojJicw?si=JT5EHooHdcMoAOcY

Mermaid: https://youtu.be/S47mwTHxjfg?si=MaWGmZSsPbzOVKaD

Panther: https://youtu.be/m7NX_B5kjuA?si=M5X70L-cOdWmmMIz

Phoenix: https://youtu.be/Ba1rZI2amZ0?si=S-ejopnEOCRG3bMv

As the director explains:

There is a moment in your life when you are looking for an answer. Somewhere between everything you remember and anything that has yet to exist.

A story of heavenly bodies floating around the Sun in four phases, a million years apart. Meeting, disappearing and finding each other again, endlessly, across different spaces and times. And yet, they coexist in every passing second.

They say that there are four deserts on Earth that you can encounter. A desert of earth, a desert of water, a desert of air and a desert of fire. Four places where, if you ever find yourself there, time flows differently. Those who have been lost in one of them continue to wander, searching for something they can no longer remember, something that is still waiting for them.

Inspired by “Desert”, this year’s festival theme, I wanted to share four fragments of a story, as I remember it from a dream I once experienced.

The sun passes through new cycles of life, and the deserts transform. What was forgotten in one world reappears in another, in a different form. An encounter that was never completed, repeats itself, a million years later.

There, four mythical creatures are born from the deserts themselves, accompanying the protagonists of their stories beneath four different phases of the Sun. Pegasus, the Mermaid, the Panther and the Phoenix.

The answer keeps on waiting. But perhaps, to love is to be the one who waits.

In a moment when the past has yet to unfold, and the future has already occurred.

Just like cinema.

Biography of Stavros Markoulakis:

Stavros Markoulakis is a writer, director, and film programmer based between Greece and the Netherlands. He serves as Artistic Director of Leiden Shorts, Forum Producer at IDFA, and Head of Programme at Anafi International Film Festival.

His films, balancing between the real and the imaginary, aim to research the state of belonging, the different ways of perceiving time and reality, as well as the human relationships and non-human connections in our universe. His work has screened at international film festivals including Venice, Clermont-Ferrand, Sarajevo, and Palm Springs. He is currently developing his debut feature film, Sunbruise.

Credits:

Direction, Screenplay, Art Direction: Stavros Markoulakis

Production: Open Borders Productions

Producer: Alexandros Tiliopoulos

Cast: Youlika Skafida, Aurore Marion, Myrto Blana, Nikos Koukas, Thanos Koniaris, Efthalia Papacosta, Anastasia Galerou-Vlassi, Orestis Sinis

Director of Photography: Giorgos Valsamis GSC

Editing: Smaro Papaevangelou GFE

Music: Marilena Orfanou