Festival films

Penny and George made their first 1000 mile ride between March and June in 2004. Over a period of eleven years Penny and George travelled about 8,000 kms together, mostly over tracks and paths in the Greek wilderness. Fires have long been a problem for the Greek countryside, and in 2007 10% of the Greek forestland was burnt. Since then the Greek countryside has been constantly harmed. For example, the number of nightingales has dropped by 63% in less than twenty years, and their numbers continue to decline at the rate of 4% every year. George died in 2014. He was sixteen years old. From 2015 Penny has been teaching at an international school in beautiful Krakow in Poland.

The 2nd High School of Thessaloniki has been in operation for 100 years and is the oldest secondary school in the city. Some of the most important personalities of Greece were educated there, including archaeologist Manolis Andronikos, the litterateurs Yorgos Vafopoulos, Manolis Karagatsis, Takis Varvitsiotis, and Dinos Christianopoulos, among others. The school archives and the testimonies of well-known graduates outline the course of the school, which is an integral part of the contemporary history of the city. It is intrinsically connected with events like the two world wars, the fire of ’17, the flight of refugees in ’22, the Metaxas and colonels’ dictatorships, the German occupation, the Greek civil war, political changeovers and education reforms.

A high school student dreams of creating Doctors Without Borders; a child is born in the candlelight; a patient refuses to take his HIV treatment. 25 years of action come to life through the personal, untold stories of 25 people who found themselves at the forefront of humanitarian crises from 1990 until today. 25 years full of experiences, challenges, struggles, victories, as well as losses, from Iraq to West Africa, from Haiti to the Philippines, unfold through the personal, untold stories of a diverse group of Doctors Without Borders providing independent humanitarian action wherever it is needed

On Black Friday in 2012, two cars parked next to each other at a Florida gas station. A white middle-aged male and a black teenager exchanged angry words over the volume of the music in the boy’s car. A gun entered the exchange, and one of them was left dead. Michael Dunn fired ten bullets at a car full of unarmed teenagers and then fled. Three of those bullets hit 17-year-old Jordan Davis, who died at the scene. Arrested the next day, Dunn claimed he shot in self-defence. Thus began the long journey of unraveling the truth. This documentary follows that journey, reconstructing the night of the murder and revealing how hidden racial prejudice can result in tragedy.

Nikos Kazantzakis is famous for his novels. However, few know of his epic poem Odyssey, and even fewer have read it, although the writer himself considered it his masterpiece. It consists of 33,333 verses, and embraces the major themes of Western civilization. In Sweden, a man 102 years old, learns Greek and translates Kazantzakis’ Odyssey. The documentary travels to Sweden, America, Crete, Athens and Tinos. It is a journey through the hidden aspects of the work and personality of the writer. People become astonished, angry, or mystified by the Odyssey. Philosophical, literary, existential and psychological approaches try to illuminate a work which, if read with attention, can change the reader’s soul...

“When the Warsaw Uprising started in 1944, thousands of children lived in the city. Here are the stories of those who survived.” Hybrid documentary by Tomas Stankiewicz tells a story of a heroic and tragic 63-day struggle to liberate Warsaw from Nazi German occupation during World War II from a perspective of children. A group of kids finds a diary from the Warsaw Uprising. Trying to find its former owner, they go to the Museum of Warsaw Uprising. Thanks to the magic of the diary, they meet their agemates from 1944 who survived the complete destruction of their city and the Nazis’ slaughter of its inhabitants.

Tuberculosis longs for love and leads to fateful love affairs. In 1908, a doctor suspecting he is tubercular starts up a sanatorium in Mount Pelion. The doctor falls in love with a much younger woman who comes to work as a nurse. He marries her, only to lose her 20 years later to a notable poet who steals her away. Soon after World War II, a young Jewish woman with tuberculosis is admitted to the sanatorium. There she falls in love with a Jewish youth who survived the Holocaust. They promise each other eternal love and they get ready to marry, but times are hard for both of them and fate deals them a cruel blow, as they are abruptly separated. Many years later, he re-emerges in her life.

This fascinating documentary offers a peek into the practice of Christian courtship, wherein a woman hands over the responsibility of finding a husband to her parents and the will of God. Such is the path for Kelly, who after growing up happily in a secular family is prompted to alter the course of her own life after her parents’ divorce. Enter Ron and Dawn Wright, a Christian couple who offer to serve as Kelly’s adopted spiritual-family through the courtship process. Now in her 30s, Kelly lives with the Wrights, relying on them to scout and vet all of her prospective partners, as she vows to save her next kiss for the altar. Approaching the subject matter with sensitivity and an open-mind, the director depicts a lifestyle lived by growing numbers of Americans, though familiar to relatively few. Yet the underlying joys and struggles in Kelly’s story of love, commitment, family, and faith resonate in surprisingly universal ways.

Director’s Statement: “I traveled to South Africa to find a white family living on a desolate farm. I wanted to film how they faced the new days of equality after the fall of Apartheid. But I soon lost my way both on the endless roads and in my mind. Instead the film became a story about two very different women who both experienced a tragic loss in the midst of a white community not too fond of the future. Both women gained strength from overcoming the loss to face tomorrow. Their life stories reminded me of a possible destiny for the white tribe in black Africa. ‘If you have no love you’re going to be cruel’ a woman says in the film...That goes for cultures as well.”

In North Dakota, a sovereign Indian nation finds itself at a critical moment in its long history. Its cultural identity and heritage are vanishing in the face of the destruction of their ancestral homelands as a result of the recent oil boom on their reservation. Can they save their land, their culture and their way of life in the face of catastrophic environmental damage from the oil industry? The revenues from oil have come at a massive environmental and spiritual cost and threaten their very future. As two different world views struggle over the future of the same land, this meditative and intimate portrait of an ancient people asks the universal questions that affect us all: What is the true meaning of wealth? And where and what is home?

On his 30th birthday, Tom Fassaert receives a mysterious invitation from his 95-year-old grandmother Marianne to come visit her in South Africa. At that time, the only thing he knows about her are the myths and predominantly negative stories his father told him. She was a femme fatale who went through countless men, a famous model in the 1950s, and a mother that put her two sons into a children’s home. Fassaert decides to accept her invitation. But when his grandmother makes an unexpected confession, his venture becomes much more complicated than he could ever have imagined.

After the end of the Cold War the best code-breaker the US ever had together with a small team within NSA starts to develop a revolutionary surveillance program. It can pick up any electronic signal on earth, filter it for targets, render results in real time and all of it without invading privacy. The program is perfect – except for one detail: it’s too low cost. Therefore the tax dollar hungry NSA management dumps it – three weeks prior to 9/11! When in the aftermath of the attack NSA starts its mass surveillance of Americans, the code-breaker leaves the agency. A friend takes over and manages to revive the program in early 2002... One of the most important stories of the information society that reveals the inner workings of a politicoeconomic network whose reach goes way beyond America.

The Laboratory for Performance – Watermill Center is considered as one of the most ambitious works of art by Robert Wilson: It’s there that every year he gathers almost a hundred young artists from all over the world, whom he then directs, or “stages,” during the 50 days of the Watermill Summer Program. For the very first time in 2014, Wilson has authorised a cinematographic crew to film the exceptional creative ferment of the program. The only condition was that they were not mere observers, but also active participants, fully immerged in the artistic effervescence and integrated in the everyday life of the community. The hundreds of hours of raw footage, testimonies from rehearsals and images from the very heart of the amazing artistic environment will mutually inform each other to give birth to a unique document on the relentless creative flurry, underlying all Robert Wilson’s works.

This documentary tells the story of survival and the fight for freedom and liberation of Greece during World War II. It is the story of a partisan doctor, his wife and their three young daughters during the tragic and harsh years of the Occupation. Together with the Greek partisans in the mountains of Roumeli, they live out the drama and the grandeur of the resistance. In parallel action, a Greek Jewish family lives its own odyssey of survival. The solidarity of all the heroes of the documentary will create bonds of love that last up to the present time.

This observational self-discovery journey follows one girl's exploration for her own place, identity and sexuality inside a male-dominant society. Within a constantly changing country, as she transitions from childhood into adulthood, she witness what it takes to grow up as a young female within a police state in a post-revolution era, and how little choices a young woman has to shape her own future. Amal, embodies the same confusion Egypt has as a state. Each is trying to reach an adult status despite the tough authoritarian regime and the political twists. Amal, whose name literally translates to “hope,” is carving a place for her within this hostile environment by defying an older generation and a pro-state family. Her mother is a judge and her uncle is one of the powerful statesmen.

A narration by Marina Karagatsi about her three year stay on Andros at the end of the 70s; her acquaintance with the unknown facets of the island as seen through her camera. A short documentary by the Andros Cinema Club, made possible after collecting and digitizing 8mm and super8 amateur films of the time.

Αn expose of the sexual abuse of minors in the film business that connects with some of the most high profile and influential members of the entertainment community. The film follows the stories of five former child actors whose lives were turned upside down by multiple predators, including the convicted sex offenders who owned and operated the now infamous Digital Entertainment Network (DEN). Just as suicide was a topic that many shunned, this is one of the last taboo subjects to gain traction in one of the most controversial films of 2015.

In 2003, a group of scientists called Naoudomos began reconstructing a prehistoric penteconter as part of an experimental nautical archaeology research programme. This is the ship’s tale - from choosing the trees to its two-year-long construction and its eventual journey at sea. It will take the Argonauts’ mythical ship 10,000 strokes a day to travel from Volos to ancient Colchis. Our modern-day Argo has to complete a 1,200-mile journey in 60 days. Will the 74 volunteer rowers survive the test? Or will this Argonautic expedition founder, thus turning into an endless odyssey?

“You go out in the yard. On a bench, you find some prisoners talking about how they will break the law without being caught. On other benches, prisoners talk about drugs and Kalashnikovs. And suddenly, you see a big Lithuanian guy with some other inmates of the same proportions playing chess...” as a music teacher, held in the Special Youth Detention Centre in Avlona, Greece, narrates. Is there really a second chance in real life? A young man from Lithuania finds himself prisoner in a youth detention center, in a foreign and unknown country to him, where he doesn't even speak the language. He'll either stay in his cell and give up everything or he'll find a way to redefine his life. He may try to learn Greek in the prison's school, discover his hidden talents and study at the Technical University one day. Will he succeed? For three years, he struggles to fulfil these unattainable goals, as the camera records his anguish to start his life from scratch.

The world’s first movie about kids in global cinema. It’s a passionate, poetic portrait of the adventures of childhood – its surrealism, loneliness, fun, destructiveness and stroppiness – as seen through 53 great films from 25 countries. It includes classic movies like E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and The Red Balloon, also dozens of masterpieces (many directed by women) that are almost unknown. It combines the child’s eye view of Mark Cousins’ acclaimed film The First Movie, with the revelations and bold movie history of his 15 hour documentary The Story of Film: An Odyssey. An eye-opening documentary, a landmark film and a celebration of both childhood and the movies.

Comrades and lovers Amer and Raghda met in a Syrian prison cell 15 years ago. When the director first meets their family in 2009, Raghda is back in prison leaving Amer to look after their 4 boys alone; but as the “Arab Spring” sweeps the region, the family’s fate shifts irrevocably. Filmed over five years, the film charts their incredible odyssey to political freedom. For Raghda and Amer, it is a journey of hope, dreams and despair: for the revolution, their homeland and each other.