67th THESSALONIKI INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
5 NOVEMBER → 15 NOVEMBER 2026
OLIVER LAXE – A SENSE OF DIRECTION
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 9
11:00 – 12:30
Pavlos Zannas Theater
Admission is free, on the issue of a zero-value ticket.
A filmmaker’s guide to intuition: experience over explanation, and images over formulas. Oliver Laxe, director of Mimosas, Fire Will Come and Sirāt, discusses how his films grow out of landscapes, people, sounds and encounters, and how a clear sense of direction can still leave room for the unexpected.
Moderator: Yorgos Krassakopoulos, Head of Programming, Thessaloniki Film Festival
The discussion will be conducted in English with simultaneous interpretation into Greek.
OLIVER LAXE
Born in Paris in 1982, Oliver Laxe is the son of Galician emigrants. When he is six years old, his family returns to Galicia, in the northwest of Spain. In his twenties he moves to live in Morocco, where he self-produces "You All Are Captains", a film that earns the FIPRESCI Prize at the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes in 2010, and "Mimosas", that receives the Grand Prize of the Critics’ Week in Cannes in 2016.
He shoots "Fire Will Come" in Os Ancares, the mountains of his ancestors, a film that wins the Jury Prize in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival in 2019. Fifteen years after his first premiere in Cannes Oliver achieves his first presence in Competition with "Sirāt", winning the Jury Prize. It was the Spanish submission for the 98th Academy Awards, being nominated for two Oscars.
Laxe’s work has been recognized at the world’s leading festivals and embraced by critics and audiences worldwide. Laxe has established himself as a major auteur of contemporary cinema, thanks to one of the most distinctive and personal visions of today’s filmmaking.
