email print share on Facebook share on Twitter share on LinkedIn share on reddit pin on Pinterest

THESSALONIKI DOCUMENTARY 2019

The 21st Thessaloniki Documentary Festival to focus on profoundly political topics

by 

- Greece's main documentary event will showcase more than 200 films across 20 sections, including 11 world, 12 international and four European premieres

The 21st Thessaloniki Documentary Festival to focus on profoundly political topics
Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love by Nick Broomfield

The 21st edition of the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival (TDF), one of South-Eastern Europe's biggest film gatherings and the most important documentary festival in Greece, which will take place from 1-10 March at seven venues across the city, has announced its full programme.

TDF will present 178 feature and 49 short documentary films across 20 sections, including 11 world, 12 international and four European premieres. It will open with the international premiere of Nick Broomfield's Leonard Cohen biopic Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

The festival's main International Competition takes its cue from the phrase “Touch Me Not”, and focuses on several issues arising from it: “Social, racial, gender-related, psychoanalitic and, above all, profoundly political" topics, as the festival programmers put it in the catalogue. The line-up consists of ten films that will be competing for the Golden Alexander Award, only one of which is not a European production: Joanna Reposi Garibaldi's Lemebel (Chile/Colombia). The rest are: Rachel Leah Jones and Philippe Bellaiche's Advocate [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Rachel Leah Jones, Lea Tsemel
film profile
]
(Israel), Mischa Hedinger's African Mirror [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
(Switzerland), Christina Phoebe's Amygdalia [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
(Greece), Aiste Žegulyte's Animus Animalis (A Story About People, Animals and Things) [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Aistė Žegulytė
film profile
]
(Lithuania), Panos Arvanitakis' Fossils [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
(Greece), Pawel Ziemilski's In Touch [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
(Poland/Iceland), Francesca Mannocchi and Alessio Romenzi's ISIS, Tomorrow. The Lost Souls of Mosul [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Francesca Mannocchi, Alessi…
film profile
]
(Italy/Germany), Hassan Fazili's Midnight Traveler [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
(USA/Qatar/Canada/UK) and Adele Tulli's Normal [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
(Italy/Sweden). 

In addition to the VR Competition, initiated last year, which consists of eight titles from eight countries (see full list here), the other competitive programmes include Human Rights (with films such as #Female Pleasure [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
Samouni Road
 [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Stefano Savona
film profile
]
and What You Gonna Do When the World's on Fire? [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Roberto Minervini
film profile
]
) and Habitat (screening, among others, Acid Forest [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
The Hidden City
 [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Víctor Moreno
film profile
]
and Walden [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
).

The 31 short and 50 feature-length Greek documentaries will be screened across several different sections. Out of these, 39 have found a home in the Platform section and 12 in the newly established From Screen to Screen programme. 

As for the sidebar sections, they feature tributes to Wang Bing and Gustav Deutsch, and other highlights include thematic programmes such as Memory/History, Everything is Politics, Human Condition, Food vs. Food, The Artist is Present, Cinema, Music, >>Film Forward, the "Why Look at Animals" tribute, the "Paper Chase" tribute, and Docs for Kids.

The 21st TDF will close with a screening of Maiden [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
by Alex Holmes.

For the full programme, please click here.

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

Did you enjoy reading this article? Please subscribe to our newsletter to receive more stories like this directly in your inbox.

Privacy Policy