17/10/2014 - Yannis Veslemes’ Norway and Yannis Fagras’ Forget Me Not headline the local titles to be screened, while a dozen local projects will be vying for funds

Yannis Veslemes’ Karlovy Vary-screened vampire tale Norway [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and Yannis Fagras’ ten-years-in-the-making drama Forget Me Not will headline this year’s collection of local films at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival (31 October - 9 November), and though official announcements are pending, the two titles appear to be frontrunners to be featured as the Greek entries in the event’s first-and-second-feature competition section.

Norway follows Zano, a photophobic wanderer played by Vangelis Mourikis (Stratos [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Yannis Economides
film profile]), who comes to 1984 Athens to lose himself in the city’s burgeoning night scene, while Forget Me Not is an expansive love saga that tells the story of a diver travelling to Alaska to partake in the hoisting of a sunken aeroplane, as the woman he loves sets out from Greece to meet up with him. Shot on location in Alaska and New Orleans, the film stars Yannis Stankoglou (Xenia [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Panos H. Koutras
film profile]) and Aliki Danezi-Knutsen, and will be having its world premiere at Thessaloniki. 

Five more local films will be having their premieres at the event, including Vladimiros Nikolouzos and Nikos Nikolopoulos’ take on the assassination of CBS journalist George Polk in their film Polk, Theodoros Koutsaftis’ murder mystery Hook, Line and Sinker, and Telemachos Alexiou’s Queen Antigone, a modern take on Sophocles’ tragedy.

Stathis Athanasiou will present his fragmented, multimedia approach to Antigone in A, a title included in the Greek Panorama of films having already had their premieres in Greece, where Panos H Koutras’ UCR contender Xenia, Syllas Tzoumerkas’ Locarno entry A Blast [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Syllas Tzoumerkas
film profile] and Yannis Economides’ Berlinale-screened Stratos will also be showcased, along with titles such as Margarita Manda’s For Ever and Petros Sevastikoglou’s Electra.

There will be keen Greek interest in the Agora as well, where six local projects will be vying for attention among a 13-film list of competitors going after the Crossroads awards, which range from script-development consulting sessions to €7,000 worth of development funds offered by the CNC. Meanwhile, five more local projects will show up in Agora’s Works in Progress section, forming part of the ten titles seeking attention from industry professionals attending the festival’s market and aiming to win an award consisting of €70,000 in post-production services, offered by Graal.