How fes­ti­vals are sup­port­ing film­mak­ers through the pandemic

There’s no two ways about it: this has been a dev­as­tat­ing year for cin­e­mas. At the time of writ­ing, venues across the UK are shut­ter­ing for a sec­ond nation­al lock­down, leav­ing work­ers, audi­ences and film­mak­ers out in the cold. Yet while the future of the indus­try remains uncer­tain, there have been glim­mers of hope on the inter­na­tion­al fes­ti­val circuit.

In Octo­ber the BFI Lon­don Film Fes­ti­val host­ed its most acces­si­ble and inclu­sive edi­tion yet, piv­ot­ing to a dig­i­tal-first event for the first time in its long his­to­ry. Oth­er fes­ti­vals, from Sheffield to Mem­phis and Busan to Thes­sa­loni­ki, have fol­lowed suit by forg­ing ahead with vir­tu­al pro­grammes and mar­ket places.

While the sur­vival of these cul­tur­al insti­tu­tions is tes­ta­ment to the tire­less work and per­se­ver­ance of the organ­is­ers and pro­gram­mers, the vital role they play with­in the wider film ecosys­tem has been brought into even sharp­er focus dur­ing this tur­bu­lent year. The Thes­sa­loni­ki Film Fes­ti­val for exam­ple, which runs from 5 – 15 Novem­ber, has award­ed 3,000 Euros to Greek film­mak­ers who have debuted their first or sec­ond fea­ture at a major inter­na­tion­al fes­ti­val such as Cannes, Venice, Berlin, Locarno, Rot­ter­dam, New York, Tribeca and Toron­to, with the sup­port of the Min­istry of Cul­ture and Sports.

One of these is Apples by Chris­tos Nikou, which appears in Thessaloniki’s Inter­na­tion­al Com­pe­ti­tion sec­tion hav­ing pre­vi­ous­ly screened in Venice. Coin­ci­den­tal­ly, the film con­cerns a dev­as­tat­ing glob­al pan­dem­ic that leaves peo­ple with short-term mem­o­ry loss; to com­bat this, one man sets about cap­tur­ing new mem­o­ries on an old Polaroid camera.

Dig­ger by Geor­gis Grig­o­rakis and Kala Azar by Janis Rafa are among the oth­er home­grown pro­duc­tions select­ed for TIFF’s 61^st edi­tion. Indeed, the festival’s stat­ed goal this year is to sup­port Greek film pro­duc­tion, with an empha­sis on young and emerg­ing pro­fes­sion­als work­ing across the industry.

Else­where in the fes­ti­val, eight Greek cin­e­matog­ra­phers are the focus of this year’s Meet the Future ini­tia­tive, includ­ing Gior­gos Val­samis, the first Greek DoP to receive two Short Film Palme d’Or awards. Each has cre­at­ed a 60-sec­ond spot inspired by Thessaloniki’s core trib­ute ​‘Prophe­cies from Anoth­er World: Sci-Fi and Cli-Fi (1950 – 1990)’, and these will screen both at the fes­ti­val and on the festival’s website.

Mean­while, at the Ago­ra Lab devel­op­ment work­shop, guest experts will offer free guid­ance to Greek film­mak­ers who cur­rent­ly have a project in the edit­ing stage. There’s also the online Audi­ence Devel­op­ment & Inno­va­tion Online Lab, a col­lab­o­ra­tion between Thes­sa­loni­ki and Europa Cin­e­mas which aims to pro­vide new ideas and solu­tions for re-design­ing the cin­e­ma expe­ri­ence in a post-covid world. The long-term effects of this pan­dem­ic are dif­fi­cult to pre­dict, but for now it’s great­ly encour­ag­ing to see fes­ti­vals like Thes­sa­loni­ki striv­ing to safe­guard the future of domes­tic film production.

The 61^st Thes­sa­loni­ki Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val will take place online between 5 – 15 Novem­ber. Find out more at film​fes​ti​val​.gr