60th Thessaloniki International Film Festival

The Thessaloniki International Film Festival celebrates 60 years of Festival with wonderful films, exciting guests, events in the city of Thessaloniki, a comic, exhibitions, tribute, the present, and future of Greek cinema and a new competition section.

The film screenings will take place at the Olympion complex (Olympion and Pavlos Zannas theatres, Aristotelous Sq., Thessaloniki), as well as at the Tonia Marketaki, Frida Liappa, Stavros Tornes and John Cassavetes theatres located at the city’s Port. This year, TDF will host screenings in two additional venues situated in two Thessaloniki Municipalities: Pavlos Melas (“Christos Tsakiris” Cultural Center) and Neapoli-Sykies (Municipal Theatre of Sykies). This year we have one more venue, Makedonikon cinema.

The famous illustrator John Mavroudis designed the posters of the 60th TIFF, while the official spots were directed by the Palme D’ Or winner for short film, Vasilis Kekatos.

Opening Film

The Festival starts on Thursday, October 21 with the disarmingly true film Marriage Story by Noah Baumbach.

Closing Film
The closing ceremony of the 60th TIFF takes place on Sunday, November 10 with the unexpectedly funny and moving film Jojo Rabbit by Taika Waititi.

International Program

*The 60th TIFF sees the 14 films of the International Competition section through the prism of the Overview Effect, the experience of watching the earth from space, an experience that can shake the human intellect to its core.

*We see 8 films in the VR Competition section.

*This is the year we present a new international competition section, Meet the Neighbors with 10 films. In the section we find filmmakers from the Southeast Europe, the eastern Mediterranean, and the Middle East, with their first or second films.

*We find the most dynamic films in the Out of Competition and Open Horizons section.

*We present the best Balkan films in the Balkan Survey section.

*We find beloved filmmakers in the Special Screenings.

*We discover interesting films in >>Film Forward and we meet after midnight in our ’Round Midnight section.

Juries

The International Competition Jury is consisted by director and visual artist Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė (Lithuania), curator and producer Jacqui Davies (United Kingdom), actress and director Ariane Labed, actress Angeliki Papoulia (Greece) and director and festival programmer Wieland Speck (Germany).

The Meet the Neighbors Jury is consisted by director Tarık Aktaş, flm consultant, critic, and journalist Pamela Biénzobas and visual artist Maria Kriara.

The VR Juries are consisted by directors Babis Makridis and Ιrini Vianelli and film critic Simon Johansen.

GREEK FILM FESTIVAL

26 feature and 17 short Greek films will be screened at the 60th TIFF:
17 films produced in Greece and in co-production with other countries will have their Greek premiere in Thessaloniki (“First Run” section, part of the Greek Film Festival 2019 program).

7 rare and beloved Greek films.

2 films shot in Greece or with Greek themes (“Beyond Borders”)

1 film that has already had its Greek premiere (“A Second Viewing”)

The 16 award-winning films of the 2019 International Short Film Festival in Drama will also be screened.

TRIBUTES

• We welcome the “Pope of Trash”, American director and writer, John Waters.
• The subversive Catalan director Albert Serra will be in Thessaloniki for a retrospective of his work.
• We present the work of the British filmmaker Joanna Hogg, who will also be in Thessaloniki.
• The cinema of Gregory Markopoulos and Robert Beavers is presented through a tribute with rare films.
• Director and musician The Boy chooses 10 films full of horror, humor and tenderness from the ’80s for the Growing up in the 80s tribute.
• We organize a tribute to the great anarchist of Yugoslav cinema, Dusan Makavejev.
• We present the tribute “Different but Same”, comprised of films that revolve around the notion of respect towards minorities and diversity.

EXHIBITIONS

• We discover the unknown artistic world of Nikos Koundouros in a large exhibition that hosts paintings, sketches, costumes, masks, letters, diaries, notes, and personal artifacts.
• We present the exhibition Overview Effect – Encountering the Cosmos with works from young artists who were inspired by the 14 films from the International Competition section.
• We celebrate 60 years of the Thessaloniki Film Festival with an exhibition at the Cinema Museum of Thessaloniki about the moments, the people and the trends that defined its course and evolution.
• In “Spot the Festival” we remember the stars, red carpets, the gangs, the historic spots of the Festival. In all, 120 photos will be exhibited in shops, restaurants, bars of Thessaloniki.

COMIC

The 60th TIFF presents FESTIVAL, a comic for all the things that compose the past, present, and future of the Thessaloniki Film Festival.

AGORA

Meet the Future: A new initiative looks at the future of Greek cinema. Filmmakers who have traveled with their short films in the 13th biggest international Festivals will come at the 60th TIFF to present their next projects.

Agora’s ambassador: Beloved Greek actor Giorgos Pyrpasopoulos will bring in contact film professionals with the greek film community and will present the Agora awards of the 60th TIFF.