The 62nd Thessaloniki International Film Festival (TIFF) will be held from November 4th to 14th 2021, both face-to-face and online at online.filmfestival.gr.
The only international and competitive Greek festival, TIFF selects mainly first and second feature films, focusing on auteur cinema.
This year 197 films will be shown in Thessaloniki’s mythical screening venues: the Olympion, the Pavlos Zannas and the Makedonikon cinemas plus the Festival’s own screening rooms: Frida Liappa, Tonia Marketaki, John Cassavetes and Stavros Tornes. 144 of the films are available online.
A festival to support Greek films
Among the films on offer to the public 35 feature-length and 15 short Greek films will be screened, 20 of them having their premier at the festival. The event supports Greek films in several ways:
– “Meet the Future” gives seven promising Greek film editors the chance to meet Greek and foreign film industry professionals,
– The Agora, the festival’s professional section, hosts a casting directors’ workshop for young Greek actors in collaboration with the Greek Film Centre. This year Agora also has Agora Short Film Lab, a new initiative bringing together the directors of short films which won awards at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short FF and at the Drama International Short FF to help bring them into the industry.
– The “Greek Film Centre Award” – worth €5,000 – will go to a director whose first film is being premiered in the official selection.
Finally, “Motherland, I See You: The 20th Century of Greek Cinema” is an initiative to recover, digitize, screen and study heritage Greek films of the 20th century.
A festival orientated on the international
For the first time, TIFF is hosting three competitive sections:
– the “International Competition” has 14 films, including three Greek, competing for the “Theo Angelopoulos” Best Film award, the Special Jury award and the Special Jury award for Best Director.
– “Meet the Neighbours” has 12 films in competition from South-Eastern Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East – including three from Greece.
– Finally 11 films are participating in “>> Film Forward” – films which transcend traditional genres of cinema.
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Sources: filmfestival.gr, cineuropa.org, unifrance.org
