The latest edition of Thessaloniki International Film Festival served as a battlefield for two hashtags: #ChooseYourFrame (the official festival tagline) and #WhoIsFuckingGreekCinema (the iconoclasts' motto). Are people on the poster flying high above the sea or in a free fall? The frame seems to persuade us it is the former. Yet, same question applies to the current state of the Greek film industry, too, and the response is a bit more complex. Our Lydia Papadimitriou probes into the context.
Greek cinema found itself under fire at this year’s Thessaloniki International Film Festival. On November 2nd, the day of the festival opening, the Greek Minister of Culture Lydia Koniordou announced the early and immediate dismissal of the Greek Film Centre’s General Director Electra Venaki citing vague differences with the organization’s Board of Directors. Exactly a week earlier, on October 26th, the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation - ERT (Greece’s other main state funding body for cinema) announced the immediate cessation of the decision-makers' committee just a few days before the results of the latest project-funding call were out. Despite being unconnected, the two events created a strong sense of anger and insecurity among the Greek filmmaking community, a large part of which was in attendance in Thessaloniki, because since last year’s change of leadership, TIFF has resumed its key role in promoting and supporting Greek cinema by screening the majority of Greek films produced in 2017.
Who Is Fucking Greek Cinema badges and flyers circulated in TIFF's venues, while the traditional press conference of ERT only served to intensify insecurities among the Greek filmmakers. In response to her sudden dismissal, Electra Venaki, who had been due to attend the festival, sent a detailed and authoritative reply to the press requesting a clear explanation of the reasons for her cessation, and highlighting her extensive contribution to the institution in the 18 months since she took office. Instead of any illuminating reply, a short and vague statement by the GFC's Board of Directors gave no specific reasons for the decision, aside from claiming the General Director's reluctance to facilitate some of the Board of Directors' priorities, and announcing her (temporary) replacement with the GFC's Director of Production Vassilis Kosmopoulos.
Irrespective of the specific circumstances surrounding each of these two separate events, what becomes clear is that Greek cinema is caught up in power struggles within its supporting bodies (and with the government) – struggles that serve anything but the filmmaking community's interests. In the case of the Greek Film Centre, a large part of the problem rests with the vagueness of law 3905/2010 that regulates its managerial structure, as the text is open to different interpretations about the roles and responsibilities of GFC's General Director and Board of Directors, and can thus become the breeding ground for (personal) confrontations. It is a happy occurrence, therefore, that the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, regulated by the same law, has not fallen pray to such dysfunctions, and succeeded for one more year, despite financial difficulties, to both offer a very rich programme of screenings, while also supporting the filmmaking community with its Agora market activities.
Among the “33 Greek feature films directed by both newcomers and established filmmakers” shown in Thessaloniki, and among those I watched, three very different works directed by women stood out: Elina Psykou's SON OF SOFIA / O GIOS TIS SOFIAS (2017), Dora Masklavanou's POLYXENI (2017), and Nancy Biniadaki's THE SURFACE OF THINGS (2017). Psykou's feature (which won for Best Film in the International Narrative Competition at Tribeca this April) is set during the 2004 Summer Olympic Games in Athens and focuses on the experience of an 11-year-old boy who joins his Russian mother in Greece only to find out that she is married to a much older man whom she also looks after. A study of the way in which – despite its characters' best intentions – psychological violence breeds physical violence in a family, the film has thematic and stylistic affinities with the so-called Greek Weird Wave. Psykou's film handles the story in a distinctive and humorous way, in which huge soft toys underscore awkward expressions of love, enable empowering (also ridiculous) masquerades, and assist imaginary escapes.
Masklavanou's film, a costume drama based on a true story set in the 1970s, also focuses on familial and social oppression, only in a very different way. Its titular character, Polyxeni, is a young woman orphaned during the Greek civil war, fostered and later adopted by a rich Greek family in Istanbul. Broken down in its component parts 'poly' and 'xeni', her name and the film's title mean 'very foreign' in Greek, a metaphorical signification overemphasised in the opening titles, where a small gap splitting the word into two is evident. The metaphor does, however, point to the fundamental conflict in the film – the fact that Polyxeni is never fully accepted by her adoptive family, nor by the insular and reactionary Greek community in Istanbul. The film, which won the Youth Jury Award for a Greek production, handles its storytelling very successfully, balancing empathy with social commentary, and managing to trigger emotions without succumbing to sentimentality.
In contrast to the mainstream stylistic approach of POLYXENI, Biniadaki's debut THE SURFACE OF THINGS is an unconventional adaptation of a novel by Angela Dimitrakaki. The work is structured in four unconnected consecutive sequences, in which each of the film's four characters share with us fragmented memories of their youth in the 1980s. In doing so, they gradually reveal a traumatic event involving Athens' semi-mythical ancient rivers and a girl being swept away by them. While it can be difficult to follow all aspects of the story, the excellent performances of its female leads (especially Maria Kallimani and Themis Bazaka) turn this storytelling experiment into a compelling watch, that, while being firmly set in the present, invites the audience to mentally reconstruct aspects of the culture in the Greek capital in the 1980s.
Among Greek newcomers, Dimitris Tsilifonis is certainly worth a mention, as his well-paced and imaginatively orchestrated humorous action movie DO IT YOURSELF (2017) is an eminently watchable, entertaining, and clever genre film. Produced without the support of Greece's beleaguered state institutions but with the financial backing of the pay TV Nova and the large cinema distributor Odeon, it utilises very effectively its limited budget, and will hopefully appeal to a wide public, thus hopefully reinvigorating Greek popular cinema.
Nevertheless, while Greek films are an important part of the TIFF, they are by no means its only focus. One of its most distinctive strands is the Balkan Survey, now in its 24th year, which showcases both recent and classic films from the region. Among the recent films, Hanna Slak's THE MINER / RUDAR (2017) stood out. Based on the true story of the discovery of an unattributed mass grave from World War II, the film skilfully weaves the exploration of older and more recent traumas, dealing subtly but effectively with the history of ex-Yugoslavia. A Slovenian-Croatian-German production, THE MINER had previously participated in Thessaloniki's co-production forum Crossroads, just like Gjorce Stavreski's Macedonian-Greek SECRET INGREDIENT / ISCELITEL (2017), which had its world premiere in Thessaloniki. Stavreski's film uses a comic but also empathetic tone to explore its main character's attempts to help his cancer-suffering father with marijuana-infused cakes, while also trying to avoid the gangsters who try to recoup their lost goods. The film offers a touching portrayal of a father-son relationship, while also pointing to social dysfunctions in the former Yugoslav republic. SECRET INGREDIENT won the Audience Award for the Balkan Survey section.
But it was the older Balkan films, a tribute to literary adaptations from the region, that were particularly worth seeing this year in Thessaloniki, especially as they were screened from 35mm copies complete with flicker and print scratches. Among those I enjoyed are the two Bulgarian films, the anti-war transnational and forbidden romance in Vulo Radev's THE PEACH THIEF / KRADETZAT NA PRASKOVI (1964), and the tragic story of sexual discovery and revenge in Metodi Andonov's THE GOAT HORN / KOZIAT ROG (1972). From Yugoslavia, Aleksandar Petrović's tripartite anti-war study THREE / TRI (1965) and Ante Babaja's harsh depiction of early XX-century peasant life THE BIRCH TREE / BREZA (1967) represented excellent examples of what is now Serbian and Croatian cinema, respectively. Also on the topic of peasants, Stere Gulea's THE MOROMETE FAMILY / MOROMEȚII (1987) vividly depicts a Romanian family's saga during the 1930s, as it is affected by broader social changes.
If old technology was celebrated through the festival's archival screenings (including, apart from the Balkan Survey, a tribute to Ida Lupino and the recently deceased French director Armand Gatti, as well as a number of Greek classics), new technology had also a dynamic presence in this year's festival edition. For the first time, TIFF launched a competition section with 10 VR titles, shown in a new venue near the main cinemas. Among the VR projects shown was the ARTE co-financed DOLPHIN MAN, a VR film complementing Lefteris Haritos' similarly titled feature-length documentary based on the life of free-diver Jacques Mayol. The VR competition winners were the South Korean BLOODLESS (2017) that portrays the last moments of a brutally murdered sex-worker's life and NOTES ON BLINDNESS (2016) that uses the diaries of John Hull to communicate the experience of losing sight.
More treats – the festival opened with Ildikó Enyedi's Golden-Bear winner ON BODY AND SOUL / TESTRÖL ÉS LÉLEKRÖL (2017) and closed with Sally Potter's THE PARTY (2017). In its Open Horizons section, TIFF screened an excellent selection of indies, including Valeska Grisebach's WESTERN (2017) that (ironically) transposes contemporary conflicts between civilisation and wilderness to the European Union's Eastern borders, in Bulgaria. The festival also hosted a retrospective of Ruben Östlund, whose Palme d'Or winner THE SQUARE (2017) was not only screened but triggered the installation of a smaller scale square on Thessaloniki's Aristotle square – half-seriously, half-playfully reproducing the film's critique of the art world, its institutions, and its dependence on media. A charismatic speaker, Östlund gave a highly entertaining and illuminating masterclass open to the public. Alexander Payne also attended the festival with his new film DOWNSIZING (2017) that was very well received in Thessaloniki. Of Greek descent, Payne has been a regular supporter of the festival, having attended seven times and participated as a competition juror twice.
This brings us, finally, to the International Competition itself, programmed this year under the overall theme of Taking Roots inspired by Simone Weil's writings, as explained in the festival's new semi-scholarly publication entitled Non-Catalogue (its name, presumably, a clin d'oeil to Östlund's sarcastic similar references in THE SQUARE). Swedish cinematographer Jens Assur's debut feature RAVENS / KORPARNA (2017) won TIFF's Golden Alexander for the beautifully shot and powerfully narrated story of a 1970s farmer who is trying to resist the modernisation and capitalism's changes. Vahid Jalilvand's unsettling, insightful, and engrossing moral tale NO DATE, NO SIGNATURE / BEDOUNE TARIKH, BEDOUNE EMZA (2017), about a doctor assuming responsibility for a death that may or may not have been of his own making, received the festival's second award, the Silver Alexander.
Despite the clouds of insecurity and anger caused by knee-jerk political decisions concerning the future of state support of Greek cinema, the overall spirit in Thessaloniki was optimistic. In its 58th year, and despite the numerous changes, transformations, and crises of its own during TIFF's long history, the festival remains a major cultural hub for watching, discussing, planning, and reviewing films from Greece, the Balkans, Europe and beyond. The sold-out screenings, the full cafés and restaurants in its vicinity, and the overall festival buzz testify to this. Let's just hope that in the years to come the other film-supporting institutions in Greece will follow the Thessaloniki festival's successful example.
If you are a film industry professional, you can watch titles from Thessaloniki IFF on Festival Scope
#Repost @filmfestivalgr (@get_repost) ・・・ Guess who's excited to be back in #TIFF58 #AlexanderPayne #Downsizing We are excited too Mr Alexander!!!! #tiff58 #cinema #movies #travel #mind #filmfestival #dreamers (στην τοποθεσία Thessaloniki International Film Festival)
