The 26th Francophone Film Festival in Thessaloniki

The highly successful collaboration between the Thessaloniki Film Festival, the Institut Français de Grèce and the Institut Français de Thessalonique returns for another year. From Thursday 26 to Monday 30 March 2026, the Stavros Tornes theatre (Warehouse 1, Port) hosts a selection of nine films from the 26th Festival of Francophone Film in Greece.

Screenings of the 26th Francophone Film Festival in Thessaloniki will open on Thursday 26 March (20:00) with the delightful docufiction comedy Marcello Mio by acclaimed French director Christophe Honoré, a tribute to the great Marcello Mastroianni, unfolding through an inventive narrative premise: Chiara Mastroianni, Marcello’s daughter, inhabits a fictionalised version of herself, deciding to live as her father in a desperate search for answers and meaning. The film also features (her mother and Marcello’s former partner) the legendary Catherine Deneuve and many other renowned French actors, each shaping alternative versions of their own persona.

Bringing together some of the most prominent and established voices of contemporary French and international cinema, the selection presented in Thessaloniki features (beyond Christophe Honoré) Michel Gondry, Arnaud Desplechin, Raoul Peck and Hafsia Herzi. At the same time, audiences will experience a rich cinematic spectrum, spanning different genres and a wide range of stylistic and thematic threads: animations that bring to life worlds both dreamlike and nightmarish, love letters to the magic of the darkened theatre, family dramas rooted in social realism, unconventional love stories, as well as documentaries centred on real figures who fought to change the world around them.

As the curtain falls on a five-day celebration of cinema from across the Francophone world, on Monday 30 March (20:00) we welcome one of the most significant biographical films ever made in French cinema, the unforgettable Van Gogh (1991) by Maurice Pialat, which traces the turbulent and tormented life of the gifted Dutch painter. A film for which Jean-Luc Godard congratulated Maurice Pialat, writing to him: “Your film moves beyond the familiar limits of our cinematic horizon, a camera guided by the heart, drifting between places, moments in time and colours.”

Detailed screening schedule :

Thursday 26/3

20:00Marcello Mio (2024, 121΄) by Christophe Honoré

Friday 27/3

19:00Good Mother / Bonne Mère (2024, 99΄) by Hafsia Herzi

21:00Filmlovers! / Spectateurs ! (2024, 88΄) by Arnaud Desplechin

Saturday 28/3

18:30Ernest Cole: Lost and Found / Ernest Cole, photographe (2024, 105΄) by Raoul Peck

20:30Love Letters / Des preuves d'amour (2025, 97΄) by Alice Douard

Sunday 29/3

17:30Maya, Give Me a Title / Maya, donne-moi un titre (2024, 61΄) by Michel Gondry

19:00Allah Is Not Obliged / Allah n'est pas obligé (2025, 77΄) by Zaven Najjar

21:00Peak Everything / Amour Apocalypse (2025, 100΄) by Anne Émond

Monday 30/3

20:00Van Gogh (1991, 158΄) by Maurice Pialat