The
16th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival – Images of the 21st Century is just around the corner. From
14-23 March 2014 the town is the place to be as it will overflow with the best documentaries from all over the world. This year, there΄s been a change in the administration of the Festival. Giannis Boutaris, Mayor of Thessaloniki and president of
Thessaloniki International Film Festival, wasn΄t able to continue being in charge due to his pre-election campaign. As a result the Greek Minister of Culture named
Iannis Smaragdis, well-known director and favourably disposed towards the governement, the new president of the Festival.
The Official Selection includes many Greek but also other Balkan documentaries which have managed to stand out and distinguish for their stories and artwork. The documentaries will screen in 10 different categories. Views of the World, Stories to Tell, Recordings of Memory, Portraits: Human Journeys, Habitat, Human Rights, Music & Dance, Society, Arts and Greek Panorama. Out of 59 Greek documentaries in total, 26 are included in the various International Programme sections, while 33 will screen in the Greek Panorama.
See the full Programme list
here
This year, Thessaloniki Documentary Festival will pay tributes to the French director Nicolas Philibert, who will be present at the event, as well as to the Canadian director Peter Wintonick, who passed out on November 2013. From this year on, the Festival will institutionalize the Peter Wintonick Audience Award which will be awarded to the best foreign feature documentary.
Besides the Official Selection, the audience will also have the chance to attend the annual Doc Market, first introduced in 1999. The International Doc Market will be held in the Byzantium hall at the 1st floor of the Electra Palace Hotel at Aristotelous Sq. next to the Festival headquarters. The Market caters to television networks from European countries and a wide range of professionals from various parts of the world.
Approximately 500 films will be available in this year’s Doc Market, including the majority of the films that are screened as part of the 16th TDF official program and about 60 buyers from Europe, the USA and Canada will be attending the Market.
Once again, for the third consecutive year, the Doc Market will present a Docs in Progress section. 9 projects from the Balkans and the Mediterranean region will participate in closed sessions for Thessaloniki’s invited industry professionals, sales agents, distributors, producers and festival representatives. The participants will present and screen 5-8 minutes from their projects, aiming towards securing coproduction deals, funds for project completion, as well as deals for presales and distribution. For the second year Authorwave Post-Production House offers an award (up to 15.000 euros) in kind services.
The Balkan projects participating in this year΄s Docs in Progress are:
Eni Got Her Gun by Polly Vlachou (Greece)
Producer: Dimitris Vernikos
The Invisible Hands by Marina Gioti, Georges Salame (Greece/Italy)
Co-Production: MeMSéA
Beloved Days by Constantinos Patsalides
Another event in the frames of Doc Market is
EDN Docs in Thessaloniki, a pitching forum running since 2001 in collaboration with the
European Documentary Network and with the support of the
EU MEDIA Program. This pitching forum gives documentary professionals the opportunity to have their projects pitched to a panel of international financiers, commissioning editors and representatives of the international audiovisual media. The first 3 days focus on project development and polishing, under the guidance of cinema industry professionals, while the last 2 days are reserved for pitching.
This year, 21 projects are selected to participate in Docs in Thessaloniki, among which three come from the Balkan region:
Andreas Papandreou - The Making of a Political Maverick by Yianni Drakos and Stan Draenos (Greece)
Producer: Magnus Briem - Schadenfreude Films
Five Times a Stranger by Vangelis Efthymiou (Greece)
Producer: Maria P. Koufopoulou - Land Art Productions
The Fragments by Rojda Akbayir (Turkey)
Producer: Zeynep Koprulu - Periferi Film
16th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival - The Official Trailer
In addition to the pitching forum, EDN Docs in Thessaloniki is organizing a Masterclass, presented by Ben Kempas, Producer of Marketing and Distribution at Scottish Documentary Institute. The masterclass, under the name “Distributing an auteur documentary a case study on I Am Breathing” will take place on March 21, from 11:15-13:00, at John Cassavetes Theatre.
Doc Market will also offer half-hour talks by professionals from different areas/professions in the documentary world. The talks will take place in an informal environment and the speakers will share valuable advice and observations drawn from their extensive experience in the industry.
This year’s speakers are
Ove Rishoj Jensen from
EDN (19 March),
Alexandros Christoyiannis from
OTE TV (20 March) and
Flora Gregory from
Al Jazzera (21 March).
Finally, for those who won΄t be able to attend, Thessaloniki Documentary Festival will be implementing for the 4th year an innovative live streaming project, in collaboration with the Electro-Acoustic and Television Systems Laboratory at the Polytechnic School of Thessaloniki’s Aristotle University, under the supervision of Professor Yorgos Papanikolaou and with the support of OTE. Films, presentations of film directors, ceremonies, events, educational audiovisual programs and a wide range of activities organized by the Festival will be made accessible to Athens and the Greek periphery, through the use of new technology, thus giving every friend of the documentary the opportunity to attend the Festival without having to visit Thessaloniki.
For more information about the parallel events and activities, please visit the Festival
website.
