Thessaloniki Film Festival Chief Hopes Event Can Help ‘Ease Pain’ in ‘Difficult’ Times: ‘Cinema Matters’

The Thessaloniki Intl. Film Festival kicks off its 67th edition this week with an eclectic lineup of festival favorites, Oscar hopefuls and homegrown films that showcase the range and dynamism of the Greek industry.

But on the eve of this year’s event, artistic director Orestis Andreadakis admits that it’s far from business as usual at the long-running fest.

“This year’s festival takes place during one of the most difficult and volatile periods for humanity: wars, massacres, the rise of the far right and neo-fascism, social unrest, uncertainty about the development of artificial intelligence and the climate crisis,” Andreadakis tells Variety. “All of this is part of our shared reality, and of course it is reflected in this year’s selection.

“We hope that through the films of the 67th TIFF we can offer a little hope, ease pain and resist horror, polarization, hostility and dehumanization,” he continues. “Films can broaden our horizons, sharpen our awareness and critical thinking, and shape us in unexpected ways.”

The festival opens with “Minotaur,” by two-time Academy Award nominee Andrey Zvyagintsev (“Leviathan,” “Loveless”), a trenchant portrayal of despair and corruption in Vladimir Putin’s Russia that won the Grand Prix in Cannes and will represent France in the international feature film Oscar race. Describing it as a “a powerful and unsparing portrait of a society trapped in its own labyrinth of fear and moral compromise,” Andreadakis says the film was a “natural choice” for the programming team.

“It is exactly the kind of cinema we believe in: brave, demanding and able to sharpen our awareness of the world we live in,” he says. The festival closes Nov. 15 with “Woman Unknown,” the Venice Golden Lion winner from May el-Toukhy, with Venice best actress winner Mathilde Arcel in attendance.

Among the other guests on hand in Thessaloniki will be Spanish filmmaker Oliver Laxe (“Sirat”), who won the festival’s Golden Alexander in 2019 with his Un Certain Regard prizewinner “Fire Will Come.” Laxe has been tapped to curate a special programming sidebar, “Welcome to the Desert,” and will also deliver a talk for festival audiences.

Meanwhile, Turkish filmmaker Emin Alper will be feted with a tribute to his acclaimed body of work — including this year’s Berlinale Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize-winning, “Salvation” — while German director Fatih Akin will be on hand to present his latest film, “Ghost Song,” which opened the San Sebastian Film Festival. Greek composer and conductor Stavros Xarchakos and filmmaker Nikos Grammatikos will also receive honorary Golden Alexander Awards at this year’s event.

A total of 258 films will screen across the festival’s various sections, with 10 films vying for the Golden Alexander in the main international competition. Among them are Walter Thompson-Hernández’s Sundance-premiering “If I Go Will They Miss Me” and Sarah Arnold’s French caper comedy “Too Many Beasts,” which bowed at Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight. Also competing is Brazilian directors Matheus Farias and Enock Carvalho’s gay erotic thriller “The Riverbank,” which won prizes at Locarno and Rio.

A trio of Greek films are also in the running for top honors, including Konstantina Kotzamani’s Un Certain Regard premiere “Titanic Ocean,” Efthimis Kosemund Sanidis’ Karlovy Vary competitor “A Whole Person Almost” and Jacqueline Lentzou’s “A Day in the Life of Jo: Chapter Phaedra,” which won the prize for best director in the Venice Film Festival’s Horizons strand. They’re among the 26 feature-length and 28 short films that will represent the host nation at its premier film event, showcasing the fact that, as Andreadakis puts it, “Greek cinema is in a great place right now.”

“We are extremely happy, because this year a total of 26 Greek feature films will be screened at the festival, seven of them in our three international competition sections,” Andreadakis says. “The program includes the most exciting new voices in Greek cinema, as well as major, well-established filmmakers.”

Supporting the Greek film business has always been a core part of the mission of the Thessaloniki Film Festival and its industry arm, Agora, with Andreadakis noting that “the festival does more than give a film a slot in its program.”

“In Thessaloniki, members of the Greek film community (directors, producers, distributors, screenwriters, technicians and actors) can network, form international partnerships and find their way into international markets and festivals,” he says.

They’re not alone, as the festival — coming at the tail end of the fall circuit — has become an increasingly popular gathering place for the international industry, particularly for filmmakers in the Eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea regions, while the Agora continues to expand its geographical footprint and foster collaborations with a range of partners from across Europe and beyond.

It’s been 10 years since the respected writer and film critic was handed the reins of Greece’s oldest and most prestigious film festival, and as he looks back now, Andreadakis acknowledges that in the past decade the festival has “had to overcome a lot of challenges, the biggest being the COVID period, where we had to rethink the very idea of a film festival.”

“We had to make difficult decisions, but it also showed us how much a festival is needed as a meeting point,” he says. “As not only the world, but also the way we experience film is changing rapidly, we hope that we can still continue to grow and change, without losing our focus.

“As audiences are watching films in new ways, we want to keep finding ways to bring people, especially younger audiences, back to the shared experience of the cinema,” he continues. “At the same time, we want to strengthen Agora even further and make Thessaloniki a key hub for European cinema, a place where projects are born, where new ideas surface, where collaborations take place. Our goal remains simple: to keep the festival a place where cinema is discovered and shared.”

The Thessaloniki Intl. Film Festival runs Nov. 5 – 15.