Greece’s Thessaloniki Worldwide Movie Pageant returns this night for its sixty fifth version with a screening of Maria, the most recent characteristic from Chilean director Pablo Larraín.
The pic, which stars Angelina Jolie and debuted at this yr’s Venice Movie Pageant, will display for audiences at Thessaloniki’s Olympia Theatre following a gap ceremony.
Working 31 Oct – 10 Nov, Thessaloniki will this yr display 12 movies in its worldwide competitors. Titles embody Edinburgh-based filmmaker Laura Carreira’s haunting debut characteristic On Falling. The pic, which debuted at Toronto and landed the Sutherland Award for debut movie at London, follows Aurora, a younger Portuguese lady who struggles to make ends meet throughout one week in her adopted residence of Glasgow, Scotland. Different titles embody Ariane Labed’s debut characteristic September Says and the buzzy Palestinian characteristic To A Land Unknown. A complete of 252 characteristic and brief movies will probably be screened at Thessaloniki. The worldwide competitors sits alongside two sidebar strands, Meet the Neighbors and Fiction Ahead for regional and experimental works. The pageant will shut with Joshua Oppenheimer’s fiction debut The Finish.
Headline attendees this yr embody Juliette Binoche, Ralph Fiennes, and Matt Dillon. The three actors will all be handed honorary awards. Greek filmmaker Panos Koutras, greatest identified for works like A Girl’s Manner and Dodo, may even be honored on the pageant.
Beneath, Orestis Andreadakis, Thessaloniki Worldwide Movie Pageant creative director, breaks down this yr’s version. Andreadakis additionally discusses security on the pageant following an anti-LGBT assault at Thessaloniki’s documentary pageant in March and the way what he described as political extremism is making it tougher to mount movie occasions.
DEADLINE: How has prep for this yr’s pageant gone?
ORESTIS ANDREADAKIS: Making ready a pageant is a really peculiar job since you are basically making ready an imaginary occasion. It’s not like some other occasion as a result of as quickly because it’s completed it disappears since you are working with motion pictures. We attempt to gather movement photos from all over the world and undertaking them for our viewers. We discuss with administrators, producers, and actors. After which puff, every little thing is within the air. However within the meantime, that is the magic of a movie pageant.
DEADLINE: How has the method of attracting movies been? There’s numerous discuss this yr being tough for festivals due to the Hollywood strikes?
ANDREADAKIS: We’ve the identical quantity of flicks this yr. We’ve 252 kind of yearly. However to inform you the reality, sure, over the previous couple of years it’s been tougher due to the varied ongoing conditions all over the world. To begin with, in our neighborhood, there are two bloody wars. In Ukraine and Palestine. Second, the local weather disaster is getting worse yearly and third, there was a rise in political extremism. As a pageant, we wish to help filmmakers and artists to speak about these tough conditions and issues.
DEADLINE: There was an anti-LGBTQ assault in Thessaloniki through the documentary pageant in March. The town is historically very welcoming to all, in order that was stunning. Will that assault change how the pageant runs?
ANDREADAKIS: Sure, the documentary pageant in March was tough primarily due to the assault that was because of the poster we had chosen. However happily, it didn’t final. It was solely through the pageant. A number of days after it was calm. So for the second, we haven’t had any comparable issues. However that is the symptom of the tough conditions we stay in.
DEADLINE: Thessaloniki now has a podcast competitors. Why did you resolve to incorporate podcasts within the official lineup?
ANDREADAKIS: Sure, we’ve had the part in earlier editions and I consider we’re both the primary or second pageant globally to incorporate a podcast programme. We’re very pleased with this as a result of podcasts are actually a sort of cinema with out photos. It’s very intriguing. And now, the viewers loves it. Once they’re going from one place to the subsequent or they’re ready to see a film, they’ve the possibility to listen to a podcast.
DEADLINE: So pageant goers can simply signal on to the pageant web site and hearken to the collection of podcasts?
ANDREADAKIS: Sure, we choose the podcasts the identical manner we choose the flicks. After which you’ll be able to go to our web site and listen to the podcasts.
DEADLINE: This yr Carlo Chatrian is visitor curating a sidebar titled ‘We, the Monster’. Final yr, Dennis Lim curated a bit. Why do you invite visitor curators?
ANDREADAKIS: As a result of it’s all the time good to have one other voice. An exterior voice. A recent voice, and so they carry one thing new and completely different. It’s all the time nice to carry one thing from exterior that may enrich our opinions and programme. Final yr it was Dennis Lim and this yr we labored along with Carlos Chatrian to pick out 22 motion pictures. I feel the theme could be very related as a result of slowly our society is changing into extra monstrous. There are additionally some individuals who consider individuals who have completely different backgrounds to them are monsters. However they aren’t. So there are two sides to this.
DEADLINE: Panos Koutras will obtain an honorary award this yr. Are you able to discuss slightly about why he is a vital Greek filmmaker to honor?
ANDREADAKIS: Panos Koutras is without doubt one of the most essential, filmmakers of recent modern Greek cinema. He’s one of many first filmmakers right here to debate LGBT themes, even in his brief movies. He additionally speaks about minorities and he invented a brand new, utterly private cinematic view. Whenever you see only one minute of a Panos Koutras movie you immediately acknowledge that’s Panos Koutras fashion, and that’s very uncommon.
