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The stunning film Maiden, by Alex Holmes, a thrilling documentary that pins you to your seat, unravels a daring woman-driven maritime feat and marks the curtain call for the 21st Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, on Sunday March 10th.
A limited number of tickets for the closing ceremony is available in the BOX, at Aristotelous Square.
21st THESSALONIKI DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL [1-10/3/2019]
Market Talks: Documentary Festivals
Let’s Talk about Programming
Doc Market’s “Market Talks” session in the 21st Thessaloniki Documentary Festival continued on Wednesday 6 March 2019, at Warehouse C, focusing this time on festival programming.
“Market Talks” is a successful series of discussions where prominent film professionals give practical information and advice to Greek and foreign filmmakers, as well as to the audience attending this year’s event.
The speakers in Wednesday’s session were Emmanuel Chicon (Visions du Réel, Switzerland), Miguel Ribeiro (DocLisboa, Portugal) and Elena Subira (Docs Barcelona, Spain), heads of programming at big European documentary festivals. TDF’s head of international program Dimitris Kerkinos moderated the discussion.
In the beginning of the session, Emmanuel Chicon talked about the history of the Swiss Visions du Réel, the oldest of the three festivals. He has been head of programming there for the last ten years; however, Visions du Réel exists since 1969, having started out as a “leftish” Documentary Festival, where the audience could watch films from Eastern Europe and GDR (former East Germany). It was dedicated to powerful political and social matters, such as capitalism and feminism, until mid-90s, when the artistic director changed and the festival’s philosophy was radically differentiated, focusing instead on creative documentaries ( unconventional films as to their narrative), which is the case until today. “This is the style we’re trying to maintain, defending the creative approaches of feature and short films. Each year we screen 180 films, but we receive about 2,000-3,000, making open calls every September and November. In masterclasses taking place during the event we try to put experienced filmmakers side by side with younger ones -this year, for example, we welcome Werner Herzog. We estimate that around 40,000 people attend the event, through which we try to establish a strong relationship between professionals and the audience”, Mr Chicon said. Noting that he never seeks something particular in the films he selects, Mr Chicon added that the festival team consists of six people specialized in different thematic areas, who meet twice a year to watch the pre-selected films and form the final list.
Miguel Ribeiro from DocLisboa took over afterwards, explaining that the Portuguese festival is now in its 17th year, adding that its purpose is not to see documentary within the established context, but to reflect upon the relationship between documentary films and truth/reality, either objective or subjective, such as in dreams. “We are a festival trying to defy categorization by screening films of any duration, thematic or approach. Creating small sections within bigger ones, we try to reflect on modern and timeless, political, social, personal. In addition, we have a section dedicated to student films, to be announced this year for the first time, and another one called ‘Cinema of Urgency’, dedicated to video-activism, that is videos made for activist purposes that circulate on the Internet”, he said. Asked about the relationship that DocLisboa wishes to establish with the audience, Mr Ribeiro replied that Lisboa never had a significant history in documentary. “This is what we’re trying to change, since we believe that the films we are screening provide a platform for conversation and consideration. In collaboration with various educational programs, we wish to initiate the audience to documentary world. In fact, we are screening films apart from the festival, once a month all year long, and on top of that we organize summer screenings in beautiful places in the city”, he said. Speaking about the film selection process, he noted that the six-member programming team is responsible for all sections. After each one of them selects a number of films among around 3,000 applications, they gather at Instituto do Cinema e do Audiovisual (ICA) and watch all documentaries on the big screen. Consequently, they do a lot of brainstorming trying to highlight the pluralism and diversity of their selections. “Conflicts happen, of course, but ultimately this is the most interesting part of the process”, he added.
At the end of discussion, Elena Subira from Docs Barcelona said that this is certainly the “youngest” of the three festivals, since it only operates for the last 12 years in its current form; the previous 10 editions were professionals-only. “Our goal is to be able to listen to and discover daring productions, which we include in our ‘What the Doc?’ section. We are mainly interested in documentaries from the Iberian Peninsula and Latin America, without excluding others, of course. We eventually screen about 40 features out of the 500-odd that apply each time. Besides Panorama, we have a section called ‘Latitude’ which is only for Spain, Portugal and Latin America. Besides these main programs, we have other sections out of competition; the most important is a students section, which attracts about 4,000 pupils-viewers each year”, Mrs Subira explained. Asked about the festival’s relation with the audience, she said that efforts are made to include a multitude of options to satisfy not only professionals and a more familiarized audience, but a broader one as well; she also made mention to the effort to connect the festival with viewers who are used to watching documentaries online. “For a limited time we screen documentaries in our own online platform. We have noticed that the audience does not face a dilemma before these two options, but moves more easily from the one to the other, from a collective and public viewing experience to a more private one”, she noted. As for the selection process, Mrs Subira replied that the festival’s team consists of six people who are grouped in two teams with separate responsibilities. “Ultimately, out of the 500 films I mentioned before, we select 150 which we watch again with the festival’s artistic director and conclude on the final list and their inclusion in different sections”, she added.
21st THESSALONIKI DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL [1-10/3/2019]
EDN Docs in Thessaloniki Masterclass
“Documentary Media for Local Citizens”
How are education and media literacy shaping today and how will they change in the near future? In which ways do younger audiences get access to the new media? Which initiatives build a stronger sense of digital citizenship for future generations? These are the issues discussed in the European Documentary Network (EDN) masterclass held on Tuesday 5 March 2019 at Pavlos Zannas theater, as part of the 21st Thessaloniki Documentary Festival.
Paulina Tervo, Co-CEO of the subscription-based educational digital platform Lyfta, shared valuable insights that can help reach new audiences via education. The masterclass forms part of Docs in Thessaloniki Pitching Forum 2019, co-organized by the European Documentary Network (EDN) and the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, and supported by the the EU program Creative Europe MEDIA.
Lyfta is a digital platform where teachers and pupils can access documentary media matched with curriculum-based lesson plans. Lyfta, which supports teachers in tackling complex themes and global topics in the classroom, is currently used by over 100,000 pupils in over 350 schools in the UK, Finland and the US. EDN aims to assist in promoting documentary to a new audience and by new means. Given that education is one of the main pillars that give shape to European reality, Lyfta seems to be an ideal medium to promote and use documentary in education.
“Our world is rapidly changing”, Paulina Tervo said. Chilrdren are rapidly changing too, as she added, with regard to their perceptive capability, their relation with technology and their awareness about social, cultural and environmental issues. However, educational system does not follow up, due to various reasons, as she noted. Stressing the need for new ideas and a different kind of support to teachers and pupils alike, Mrs Tervo expressed the view that the real stories told in documentaries can be used as a powerful educational tool.
Based on important neuroscientific research showing that narration, observation and interaction have a huge impact on cognitive ability, she explained how the idea for Lyfta was born. It all started from a small village in Ethiopia. A model village founded by people who wished to help others escape oppression, illiteracy, poverty. I visited it in my attempt to shoot a documentary, but soon enough I found out that I wanted something more. I wanted to create a new experience for the viewer, plunge them into this reality. Thus we started to make an interactive 360 project, where the viewer can interact with the audiovisual environment, getting in contact with the place and the people of this small community”, Mrs Tervo explained.
This experiment transformed into a successful project when the complete and uncommon documentary was screened for little kids. From then on, Lyfta has been successful in creating 360-degree educational audiovisual environments, offering elementary schoolers the opportunity to explore different cultures and habits, sharpen their perceptive capability and acquire skills which will help their smooth inclusion to a community far from prejudice and stereotypes. Mrs Tervo noted that technology -the use of a computer or a tablet- is just a tool through which educational process will grow and bear fruits. She also made mention to Lyfta’s educational approach; as she said, the educational program is formed in direct collaboration with teachers, based on the famous Finland model which sees education through a more holistic and phenomenological prism, not splitting it into distinctive modules. “The platform is cross-thematic, since it contains educational subjects ranging from religion and philosophy to art”, she said. Lyfta is accompanied by a guide for teachers, initiating them to the novel educational process and informing them as for the way they will present the content to pupils and the method for assessing their performances.
Paulina Tervo was asked how this platform transforms a documentary into an educational tool and explained the process. “First of all, you have to know who you are addressing to. Then you define the problems, or the issues you want to deal with, as well as the context in which you will propose a solution. You create in collaboration with teachers, whom you will “teach” as well so they can be able to recognize the privileges of an interactive project like this one. Consequently, you start using it, first as a pilot project, analyzing the results”. As she noted, “Having received results and data from British schools which have adopted this education system, we can say comments are more than encouraging. Pupils feel that in this way they can explore the world and contact places and people more directly, while teachers admit that pupils’ interest has increased sharply. In many cases, attitude changes have been observed, since pupils get familiar with diversity and multiculturalism”.
Asked about how someone can collaborate with Lyfta, Mrs Tervo replied that there has been a call to filmmakers for short documentaries (3-7 minutes), and 12 out of 100 proposed have already been selected. “We can also accept films that meet the following criteria we have defined as to content: have a strong people-centered character; associate with human values as defined by the UN; have characters we can visit again to make 360-degree videos; and of course, have a story which can be screened for a 7-12 year old audience. On its part, Lyfta will only have the educational rights to this documentary; the filmmaker can screen it and make the best of it any way they like. We will then take this “package” to schools and present it to teachers, who will have to pay an annual fee to have access to and use the content”.
What is the benefit of collaborating with Lyfta? As Mrs Tervo said, Lyfta is a unique educational platform of this kind, with excellent perspectives, aiming at being able to host an interactive story from every country in the world by 2022. As she underlined, “filmmakers can this way build an income which will help them complete a bigger project. At the same time, they can broaden their creative horizons in areas such 360-degree photography, and thus manage to reach a bigger audience”. Let’s not forget the social impact of this project, which contributes significantly in education and the formation of a new educational reality with the aim of making our world a better place for all, but mainly for children.
21st THESSALONIKI DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL [1-10/3/2019]
Agora Doc Market Awards
The Agora Doc Market of the 21st Thessaloniki Documentary Festival bestowed its awards for the Agora Docs in Progress Section, on Wednesday March 6th 2019, at Warehouse C, in a friendly and relaxed ambiance.
This year’s Docs in Progress Jury was comprised of Rada Sesic - Sarajevo Film Festival, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Elisabeth Hagstedt - Histoire TV, France and Menios Karayiannis - Director, Greece.
The event was preceded by the TFF General Director Elise Jalladeau, who cordially thanked all filmmakers for the projects submitted, for their ideas, talks, concerns, recommendations and remarks. “To us, you are all winners. We expect all of you next year, as well, with your films completed”, stated Mrs Jalladeau. The TFF Artistic Director Orestis Andreadakis also attended the event.
The first award, offered by Two Thirty Five (2|35) post-production company, for post-production services was given to the film Four Seasons by Katerina Patroni – Greece (Production: Eleni Chandrinou, Maria Kontogianni, Steficon). The project is also granted free accreditation and accommodation in this year’s edition of Visions du Réel festival, based in Switzerland.
The second award, offered by MuSou music company, for music and sound services, was bestowed to the film Our Choices by Salah al Ashkar – Syria, France (Production: Etienne de Ricaud, Caractѐres Productions & Ariel Cypel, L’atelier des artistes en exil).
The Greek Film Centre, in support of the 21st Thessaloniki Documentary Festival and the Agora Doc Market, offered this year an award of 3,000 euro in cash to the film School 54 by Dimitra Kouzi – Greece (Kouzi Productions).
EDN Docs in Thessaloniki 2019 Awards
In a friendly and relaxed atmosphere, the EDN Docs in Thessaloniki 2019, organized by the European Documentary Network (EDN) in collaboration with the 21st Thessaloniki Documentary Festival and supported by the EU program Creative Europe ΜEDIA, concluded with the award ceremony that took place on Tuesday March 5th 2019 at Olympion theater’s “Room With A View”.
At his opening speech, EDN Film Consultant & Web Editor Ove Rishøj Jensen once again declared enthusiasm for the creative ideas of the 20 projects presented this year and noted that, if he could, he would give not two, but 20 awards. Since this cannot be done, two projects were finally selected for the following awards:
Doc on Air award went to the project Intimate Outsiders, directed by Roser Corella (production: Roser Corella, Ana Catalá, Moving Mountains Films, Germany). The award is accompanied by a €2,000 cash prize sponsored by ERT as part of the effort to boost documentary production.
The new MIK Doc Lab award by Mediterranean Film Institute (ΜΙΚ) went to the project Phoenix, directed and produced by Daire Collins (Ireland, United Kingdom, Romania, Spain, Germany). The particular award is the fruit of a new partnership between TDF and MIK, in the context of which the winner is awarded a stipend of 1,200 euros and a stay at Nisyros and Rhodes islands, where MIK work is taking place, for 2019.
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21st THESSALONIKI DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL [1-10/3/2019]
Docs in Progress of the Agora Doc Market
The projects of the Agora Doc Market Docs in Progress section of the 21st Thessaloniki Documentary Festival were presented on Wednesday March 6th at Pavlos Zannas theater. The Docs in Progress session takes place for the eighth consecutive year in the Agora Doc Market. In this year’s edition 10 projects from South-eastern Europe and the Mediterranean region participate in closed sessions exclusively for TDF’s invited industry professionals, sales agents, distributors, producers and festival programmers.
The event was opened by the head of Agora Yianna Sarri, who addressed a warm welcome to all participants.
The Two Thirty-five (2|35) Inc post-production company offers for the fifth year in a row an award in post-production services. In addition, the MuSou award for music and sound services, amounting up to 3,500 euro, will be presented for the third time and the Greek Film Centre offers an award of 3,000 euro in cash for the second time. Furthermore, through the new collaboration between TDF and the Swiss festival Visions du Réel, the winner of the Agora DiP prize will also secure accreditation and accommodation for the Festival held in Switzerland, in April.
The international Agora Docs in Progress jury consists of:
Rada Sesic, Sarajevo Film Festival, Bosnia & Herzegovina
Elisabeth Hagstedt, Histoire TV, France
Menios Karayiannis, film director, Greece
The projects that participate in the Docs in Progress section are the following:
It should be noted that the 21st TDF Agora Doc Market is held on a daily basis until March 9th, from 10am to 8pm, at Warehouse C (Port of Thessaloniki).
Agora, an integral and valuable part of the Festival, with the support of the European program Creative Europe MEDIA, has been established as a meeting point where filmmakers from all over the world come in contact with TV broadcasters’ representatives (mainly from Europe), aiming to promote and sell their movies. The turnout is constantly on the rise, proving that Thessaloniki has consolidated its stature as a crossroad of worldwide cultural and commercial exchange.
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How much and in what ways does man differ from animals? What are the moral boundaries in experimenting with animals? How fragile is our relationship with them? How does art and philosophy converse with the animals? What does our stance towards animal kingdom reveal for our species? These are some of the questions raised in the open discussion “Why Look at Animals?” held on Tuesday 5 March at Warehouse C, as part of the 21st Thessaloniki Documentary Festival.
