Thessaloniki International Film Festival

Every November there is a special event which takes place in the 2^nd biggest city of Greece Thessaloniki the “Thessaloniki international film festival”. It is a ten-day-long festival where filmmakers from all over the world present their work.

The film festival is the oldest one over the whole Balkan because the first festival took place in 1960. Back than it was called “Week of Greek cinema” and only Greek movies were shown. The idea was to present and promote local artists. In 1992 the festival was expanded to an international film festival with the financial support of the Greek ministry of culture, the Municipality of Thessaloniki and other local institutions. Filmmakers from all over the world got invited to present their movies during the festival. With the years the festival got more and more popular and with 150 movies that are shown during the event it became the primary showcase for new artists of southeast Europe. In the setting of the old “Olympion cinema”, one of Thessaloniki`s most beautiful building, the films get shown to about 70.000 people. Today the Thessaloniki film festival is known for presenting some of the most innovating and independent films created by directors from all over the world. The movies are segmented into different sections. There is the international section for international films, the Independence-Day section a noncompetitive segment where the latest trends of the independent film production get introduced, another noncompetitive section called panorama of Greece which gives an audience to local artists to showcase their work and the Balkan survey where regional artists present movies. In the end a jury consisting of seven acknowledged cinema reviewers awards the “golden Alexander” for the best film but there are more prices for the best director, the best screening, the best actor and the best actress and for the best artistic achievements. In the context of the festival the ministry of culture also awards the state film award to the best Greek filmmaker. Since the international approval is increasing more and more people come to visit the film festival every year. So Thessaloniki uses this period to offer many other culture events that accompany the film festival like concerts and art exhibitions. In case you are interested in movies and want to see the most groundbreaking movies of the cinema world you should consider visiting Thessaloniki next November when the festival starts again.