Thessaloniki Film Festival Opens 5 November With Zvyagintsev's Minotaur
The 67th Thessaloniki International Film Festival opens on 5 November with Minotaur, a new film by Andrey Zvyagintsev, a two-time Oscar nominee. The festival runs until 15 November, with screenings in physical venues and online, according to the festival's website.
Minotaur won the Grand Prix at Cannes this year and will represent France in the international feature film race for the Oscars. The festival closes on 15 November with Woman Unknown by May el-Toukhy, which won the Golden Lion at Venice. Venice's best actress winner, Mathilde Arcel, will attend in person.
The festival's artistic director, Orestis Andreadakis, framed this edition around the world beyond the cinema. He told Variety that the festival takes place during "one of the most difficult and volatile periods for humanity", pointing to wars, massacres, the rise of the far right and neo-fascism, social unrest, uncertainty around AI and the climate crisis. He said he hopes the films will offer hope, ease pain and resist horror, polarisation, hostility and dehumanisation.
Across all sections, 258 films will screen. Ten of them are competing for the Golden Alexander in the main international competition.
The festival has several tributes and guests on its programme. Spanish filmmaker Oliver Laxe will curate a sidebar called Welcome to the Desert, and he will give a talk. Laxe won the Golden Alexander in 2019 with Fire Will Come. Turkish filmmaker Emin Alper will receive a tribute. German director Fatih Akin will present Ghost Song, which opened the San Sebastian Film Festival. Two honorary Golden Alexander awards will go to Stavros Xarchakos and Nikos Grammatikos.
The festival's industry side is also getting a change. Its Agora programme, which launched in 2005, is meant to help filmmakers from Agora-represented countries and their projects reach audiences and partners in Europe and beyond. Thanos Stavropoulos now leads it. He joined the festival as a programming assistant almost two decades ago and took over Agora this spring.
Agora's conversation series, which used to be closed to industry guests, will now be open to all festivalgoers. The series takes place across the opening weekend. This year's edition includes masterclasses from Tom Rob Smith, the screenwriter of American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace, and Christopher Papakaliatis, the creator of the Netflix series Maestro in Blue.
Agora has other threads this year. Greece was among the countries that signed up earlier this year to the European Convention, which is described as the first international treaty backing independent co-production of series for television and streaming. Last year, the festival also opened a dedicated decompression room as part of a wider focus on mental health, a sign of how much the organisers are thinking about the people who make and watch films during a hard time.
For visitors, the festival is a dense two weeks. Programmes, tickets and the full schedule are on the festival's website, and the opening film and the closing film give a clear start and finish to it.
