The curtain fell on the 55th edition of the Thessaloniki FF on Saturday, November 8, during the closing ceremony that took place at a packed Olympion Theatre. 

In his opening speech, festival director Dimitri Eipides summarised the accomplishments of this year’s edition: “We celebrated together the 55 years of the Festival. The audience gave a resounding response to our invitation, with theatres recording over 96% capacity. We owe a heartfelt thanks to this audience, because they confirmed that independent cinema can reveal a different side of the world, a side all of us need. All of our guests of honour this year have been fine examples of this kind of innovative cinema. One of them, the emblematic actress Hanna Schygulla, is here with us tonight. Your presence is a great honour. We were also joined by Serbian activist filmmaker Zelimir Zilnik and Ramin Bahrani, one of the most important voices of American cinema. We were also fascinated by the Festival’s tributes to daring filmmaker Kornél Mundruczó and to the magician of surrealism Roy Andersson. One of the landmarks of this year’s edition has been the centennial of Greek cinema. Both classics and contemporary Greek films came center stage. I would like to thank all filmmakers from Greece and abroad who trusted us with their work” said Eipides before thanking also the staff and volunteers, the Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports, the Municipality of Thessaloniki, the European Programme MEDIA, the Greek state television, the Greek Film Center and the Hellenic Parliament TV Channels.

Following Mr Eipides’ speech, directors Pantelis Voulgaris and Lakis Papastathis, along with actresses Voula Zouboulaki and Anna Synodinou received honorary awards. 

This year’s jury president, Austrian director Götz Spielmann, joined by Rasha Salti, (festival programmer), Joanna Lapinska, (artistic director at the New Horizons Film Festival in Poland), Miroljub Vuckovic (head of international relations at Serbia’s Film Center) and producer Thanassis Karathanos gave the Golden Alexander for Best Feature Film to Perpetual Sadness by Jorge Perez Solano (Mexico). Asaf Korman’s film Next to Her (Israel) won the Silver Alexander Special Jury Award, while the Bronze Alexander for Originality and Innovation was presented by Hanna Schygulla -TIFF held a tribute to her work this year- to the film The Lesson by Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov (Bulgaria, Greece) which also received the Award for Best Screenplay. 

The Best Director Award was presented to Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy for his Cannes ‘14 awarded film The Tribe, from Ukraine. The award for Best Actress was bestwed to Brooke Bloom for her role in the film She’s Lost Control by Anja Marquardt (USA) and that for Best Actor to Sverrir Gudnason (Blowfly Park by Jens Östberg - Sweden). The Artistic Achievement Award was presented to the film In The Crosswind by Martti Helde (Estonia). 

Consisting of José Antonio Teodoro (jury president, Canada), Müge Turan (Turkey) and Ninos Feneck Mikelides (Greece), the FIPRESCI (International Federation of Film Critics) jury awarded two prizes and a special mention. Goodnight Mommy (Austria) by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala received the FIPRESCI International Competition Award, while the award for Greek Films went to the film Norway by Yannis Veslemes. Also, the FIPRESCI jury bestowed a Special Mention to Nikos Nikolopoulos and Vladimiros Nikolouzos’ Polk. 

Actress Margita Gosheva receiving the Bronze Alexander for Originality and Innovation for The Lesson (photo by Motionteam)

Going to the Audience Awards, the Fischer Audience Award for a Greek film was bestowed to Dark Illusion by Manos Karystinos, while, Isa Qosja’s Three Windows and a Hanging (Kosovo*, Germany) got the Fischer Audience Award for a film in the Balkan Survey section. In the Open Horizons section the award was given to Australian filmmaker Josh Lawson for his film The Little Death. In the International Competition section, the prize was awarded to Corrections Class by Ivan I. Tverdovsky (Russia, Germany) who also received the Hellenic Parliament TV Channel’s Human Values Award.

Yannis Economides’ latest film, Stratos (Greece/Germany/Cyprus) was awarded with the Greek Film Critics Association Award (PEKK).

Roy Andersson’s A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence was screened after the awards ceremony, as part of the tribute to his work held by the festival.