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Sunny news from a festival whose logo is the warm roundness of a star

Publié le 16/03/2023 par Dimitra Bouras / Catégorie: Brève

The documentary festival of the 2nd largest Greek city celebrated its 25th edition. It has become a well-oiled machine over the years and welcome hundreds of professional visitors, producers looking for partners, distributors defending their catalogs, filmmakers presenting their movies, journalists from all over the country and especially from Athens, foreign critics and of course hundreds or even thousands of spectators throughout the 10 days of the festival.

Sunny news from a festival whose logo is the warm roundness of a star

 Entirely and uniquely dedicated to documentary, the 220 films were shown in 7 theaters and online; for some only on the VOD platform; and for others in both ways. Most of them were competing in one of the many competitions. The most numerous were unsurprisingly the national ones. As members of the FIPRESCI press jury, we had 2 films to award. The first one was to be chosen among 27 feature films produced in Greece, the second one among the international competition for which we had 9 films in the running. The remarkable thing about this festival is the large audience.

I would never have imagined that documentaries could fill theaters of 300 or up to 400 seats, which is to be multiplied by 7, the screenings being held more or less at the same time. The nerve center and the five main rooms are located in the warehouses of the old ferry terminal, headquarters of the Cinematheque and the Museum of Photography. It is a real pleasure for organizers of documentary screenings to see the interest that they spark among the audience. Theaters are often full and sold out for films like Lynch/OZ or the portrait of Jane Campion by Julie Bertucceli.
And the theaters were not only filled with professionals or film students: many spectators, seemingly simply curious and eager to participate in remarkable events, had made the trip.

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