01/03/2021 - The festival is introducing a podcast section and is running its online session during March with a special tribute to journeys, new voices and top documentaries from around the world

The 23^rd Thessaloniki Documentary Festival (TDF) will this year be held in a hybrid format. Its online edition is running from 4-14 March, and a total of 50 films will be featured via the festival’s online.filmfestival.gr digital platform, reserved exclusively for audiences in Greece. From 24 June-4 July, the TDF will run both in physical spaces and online, and then the three competition sections and the Greek documentary productions will be presented, along with the Agora Docs industry event.

The TDF is truly becoming one of the scene’s pioneers, as it is introducing a podcast section aimed at discovering recordings that can challenge the limits of art, and which follow the tempo of cinema by using voice, speech and music. During the spring session, a series of closed online workshops are being organised with leading experts, including documentary producer Delphine Saltel, who will talk about content and narrative techniques; audio engineer Peter Leonard, who will discuss sound engineering and production issues; and Gordon Firemark, who has practised media and entertainment law, and who will explore copyright and legal issues. An open discussion in Greek is also on the schedule. After the workshops, the festival will launch an open call to creators to submit their podcasts, with the best of them being presented at the summer edition, while children will also be invited to create their own recordings.

The main tribute of the TDF, “Destination: Journey”, takes the audience around the world in 22 films – 20 documentaries and two fictions – while a special bilingual edition will also be created, in which artists and academics will approach different aspects of the journey. The films forming part of the tribute, which can be found here, whisk the audience away on a non-stop voyage around the globe while at the same time following more internally orientated paths, with memories, faith, humanity, and our relationship with others and with ourselves serving as a compass.

In the Top Docs section, 18 of the best recent documentaries are featured and will be presented to the audience: among them are the IDFA winner Radiograph of a Family [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Firouzeh Khosrovani (Norway/Iran/Switzerland), as well as the IDFA-awarded The Last Hillbilly [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Diane Sara Bouzgarrou and Thomas Jenkoe (France/Qatar), The Grocer’s Son, the Mayor, the Village and the World... [+see also:
film review
film profile] by Claire Simon (France/Belgium), Notturno [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Gianfranco Rosi
film profile] by Gianfranco Rosi (Italy/Germany/France), War and Peace [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Massimo D’Anolfi and Martina Parenti (Italy/Switzerland), The Jump [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Giedrė Žickytė (Lithuania/Latvia/France/USA), A Song Called Hate by Anna Hildur Hildibrandsdóttir (Iceland), Her Mothers [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Asia Dér, Sári Haragonics
film profile] by Asia Dér and Sári Haragonics (Hungary), The Filmmaker's House [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Marc Isaacs (UK), Lift Like a Girl [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Mayye Zayed (Egypt/Germany/Denmark) and The Mole Agent [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Maite Alberdi
film profile] by Maite Alberdi (Chile/USA/Germany/Netherlands/Spain).

Finally, the NextGen section will present new voices in documentary filmmaking across the feature-, medium- and short-length formats, and the films will be available for free to users from all over Greece. Among the selection we find the winner of the Astra Film Festival, Long Live Love [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Sine Skibsholt (Denmark), and Little Ballerinas [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Anne-Claire Dolivet (France).