18/11/2005

Greece’s film industry financing woes are expected to take a back seat for the next ten days, when the Thessaloniki International Film Festival (November 18-27) will be blending quality cinema with a more commercial approach to things. More than 200 films will be screened in this year’s 46th edition of the festival which includes international and a national competition sections, tributes and retrospectives as well as its own "Independence Days".

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But films apart, the festival’s new management, under president George Corraface and, especially, director Despina Mouzaki, who took over from Theo Angelopoulos and Michel Dimopoulos respectively, admits it wants to shift part of the festival focus on the commercial aspects of film-production.
Two such segments are introduced this year, to run parallel with the established Balkan Fund Workshop (November 19-21), which though caters purely for projects from the area and if they succeed even only in part, they could be soon showing the way for the marketing and finances of the Greek cinema.
Agora is a film market where all works screened at the festival are made available. If it does well Agora could become the primary trade platform for the industry in South Eastern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean basin.
In the Crossroads Co-production Forum (November, 24-26) Mediterranean and Balkan producers with a feature film script, or producers from elsewhere with a story with elements from the region, are offered the chance to meet a network of financiers, co-producers, broadcasters and other industry specialists. For its first year 27 projects from 14 countries are selected.

Italian cinematographer Vittorio Storaro heads the official competition’s jury. Danis Tanovic’s Hell [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (o.t L’ Enfer; France/Italy/Belgium/Japan) opens the festival, November 18.