28/10/2005

The program is not officially announced yet but one thing is certain: the opening and the closing ceremony of the Thessaloniki Film Festival promise to be a truly multi-cultural affair; and an one with a twist, according to the organizers.

Bosnia’s Oscar winner Danis Tanovic’s Hell (L’ Enfer) will open the festival November 18. The French-Belgian-Italian-Japanese co-production tells the story of three sisters who share a violent experience from their childhood and need to share how they think it has affected them. The film is in essence the second part of the Heaven-Hell-Purgatory trilogy that Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieslowski had been preparing shortly before his death. Heaven was previously produced by Germany’s Tom Tykwer. Kieslowski’s writer Krzysztof Piesiewicz actually did provide Tanovic (No Man’s Land) with the script.

All the Invisible Children will close the festival, November 27. The film’s seven stories about the world’s children is signed by eight different directors - Emir Kusturica, Spike Lee, Ridley Scott and his daughter Jordan, Mehdi Charef, Kátia Lund, John Woo and Stefano Veneruso. The film is an Italian production with known actress Maria Grazia Cucinotta in the unlikely role of being credited as producer. But the twist lies elsewhere. Receipts from the film’s release are set to go to UNICEF’s newly founded All the Invisible Children fund.

The organizers also said that three actresses are now confirmed as the festival’s hosts; Italy’s Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Niki Karimi of Iran, who was member of the jury in Thessaloniki back in 2002 and at this year’s Locarno festival, and Germany’s Jasmin Tabatabai (Unveiled).