50TH THESSALONIKI INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
WHY CINEMA NOW?
PRESS RELEASE
MASTERCLASSES, EXHIBITIONS & PARALLEL EVENTS
According to its long-standing tradition, the 50th TIFF presents a series of film- and music-related events. Guests such as Werner Herzog, Goran Paskaljevic and Alexandre Desplat will conduct Masterclasses on various aspects of filmmaking, while Round Tables, art exhibitions, performances and concerts by foreign and Greek musicians complete the Festival program.
MASTERCLASSES
At the John Cassavetes Theatre, 11:00 – 13:00 (unless otherwise specified)
Eugenio Caballero – Production Design in the Digital Era: Challenges & Opportunities
Saturday 14/11
The Mexican production designer, who won an Oscar for Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth and whose recent collaborations include Jim Jarmusch’s The Limits of Control, will discuss the art and technique of his profession.
Alexandre Desplat
Sunday 15/11
Oscar-nominated composer Desplat will attend the 50th TIFF to perform a concert and conduct a Masterclass on the subject of music for films. Jacques Audiard’s The Beat That My Heart Skipped (2005), for which Desplat won a Silver Berlin Bear, will be screened on the occasion.
Marina Grzinic
Monday 16/11 (Louloudadika, 15:30 – 17:30)
Griznic, renowned artist and Professor at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, will attend the 50th TIFF on the occasion of the presentation of a collaborative video installation with Aina Smid. The exhibition is organized by the Experimental Forum section.
Goran Paskaljevic – Low-Budget Production as an Advantage
Thursday 19/11
This year’s Balkan Survey section pays tribute to Serbian master Goran Paskaljevic. The filmmaker will conduct a Masterclass discussing his four-decade long career, a paradigm of cinematic independence amidst political and social strife.
Jeremy Thomas
Friday 20/11
Legendary producer Jeremy Thomas, who has won an Oscar for Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor, and is behind such films as Tideland, The Dreamers, Young Adam and Crash, will talk about his unique career in big-budget production as well as independent gems.
Werner Herzog - The Enigma of Werner Herzog: From Documentary to Fiction
Saturday 21/11
On the occasion of the full Werner Herzog Retrospective organized by the 50th TIFF, the German legendary master will discuss his longstanding and incredibly diverse career in cinema, which includes more than 50 documentary and fiction shorts and features.
Tony Grisoni
Saturday 21/11 (13:00 – 15:00)
Renowned screenwriter Tony Grisoni (Tideland, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) will attend the 50th TIFF as the co-screenwriter of The Unloved, Samantha Morton’s debut film, featured in the International Competition section and he will conduct a Masterclass on the art of screenwriting.
Jim Gianopulos – Great Ideas
Sunday 22/11
Greek-American Gianopulos, Co-chief Executive of Fox Filmed Entertainment, is returning to the Thessaloniki Film Festival for a Masterclass on film production organized in collaboration with the Fulbright and the Stavros Niarchos Foundations. The Great Ideas series supports educational and cultural connections between Greece and the United States since 2006.
ROUND TABLES & SIDEBAR EVENTS
Green Dialogues II
Saturday 14/11 (Tonia Marketaki Theatre, 13:00 – 15:00)
The 50th TIFF organizes a discussion on climate change in collaboration with Greenpeace, WWF, SKAI TV and the Embassy of Denmark. The Green Dialogues, established during the 49th TIFF, are part of an initiative to make the Festival a “greener” event.
The Emergence of New Independent Cinema from the Philippines
Monday 16/11 (John Cassavetes Theatre, 11:00 – 13:00)
On the occasion of the Independence Days tribute to New Philippine cinema, filmmakers Adolfo Borinaga Alix Jr, Khavn De la Cruz, Lav Diaz, Pepe Diokno and John Torres, the Philippines’ freshest independent voices, will discuss the rise of their national cinema.
TECHNI and film culture in Thessaloniki
Tuesday 17/11 (Tonia Marketaki Theatre, 13:00 – 15:00)
Presentation and discussion of the historical Techni (“Art”) Macedonian Artistic Society, which in 1960 proposed the establishment of a Thessaloniki Film Festival in order to support and promote local production.
Sid Ganis - Film Awards: Towards a Sustainable System
Wednesday 18/11 (John Cassavetes Theatre, 11:00 – 13:00)
Former President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) Sid Ganis will join colleagues from the European Film Academy and other institutions in discussing different film award systems and their respective functions.
Greek Film Critics Association
Thursday 19/11 (Pavlos Zannas Theatre, 13:00 – 15:00)
The Greek Film Critics Association (PEKK) will hold a discussion on Greek cinema, film criticism today and the TIFF’s 50 years.
EXHIBITIONS
Signs Of Life - Werner Herzog And The Cinema
Psigia (Ice Chambers) Warehouse at the Festival Pier, 13-22 November 2009, Opening Hours: 10:00-22:00
The Signs of Life exhibition, organized by the Museo Nazionale del Cinema Torino and curated by Alberto Barbera and Grazia Paganelli, travels to Thessaloniki on the occasion of the 50th TIFF Werner Herzog retrospective. The exhibit traces Herzog’s work on set and on location and identifies themes that reappear in his oeuvre; there are also stills taken by Lena Herzog on her husband’s recent films. Projections and videos show the German director being interviewed, acting in several unreleased sequences and in key moments behind the camera.
Beat Presser Photography Exhibition - Werner Herzog: “Film Must Be Physical”
MIET (National Bank of Greece Cultural Foundation) Bookshop, 11 Tsimiski Street, Opening Hours: Mon-Wed-Sat 10:00-15:00, Tue-Thu-Fri 10:00-21:00
Swiss photographer Beat Presser worked on Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo, Cobra Verde and Invincible as a set photographer. He captures the director in action, running or giving instructions and is able to photograph the passion that drives Herzog to make his extraordinary, often bizarre films. The exhibition consists of 52 photos in total.
Dissecting Fantasies: The Secrets of Guillermo del Toro
Bezesteni Market, 13-27 November 2009, Opening Hours: Mon-Wed-Sat 10:00-15:00, Tue-Thu-Fri 10:00-20:00
This exhibition, first-presented at the Guadalajara Film Festival, explores Mexican director del Toro’s magical universe through 16 videos that illustrate all stages of his and his team’s creative process in making his films. In these videos one can observe the creation of costumes and sets, drawings, digital photos and illustrations for films such as Mimic, Cronos, Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy.
Marina Grzinic & Aina Smid
Louloudadika Hamam, 13-22 November 2009, Opening Hours: 10:00-22:00
Marina Grzinic is an artist, curator and professor at The Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. Aina Smid is a Professor of art history and editor of a design magazine and together they have collaborated since the 1980s in a punk band, performances and more than 40 video art projects, for which they have received several major awards. For the 50th TIFF, a selection of their works will be revisited, curated by Vassilis Bourikas and Marion Inglessi.
Dionysis Fotopoulos: Cinema
Thessaloniki Cinema Museum, Thessaloniki Museum of Photography, 13-22 November 2009
Celebrated Greek production designer Fotopoulos, who has worked with directors such as Peter Stein, Peter Hall and Theo Angelopoulos, shows the unseen-by-the-public aspect of film production. Fotopoulos will “dress” the two museums with giant posters, which document and celebrate the art and labours of the people behind the camera.
Philip Tsiaras - The Superreal
Thessaloniki Museum of Photography, October 9-December 6 2009, Opening Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-14:00, 18:00-21:00, Sun 11:00-15:00
Philip Tsiaras is an artist and photographer of Greek origin whose works are collected in prominent museums such as the Metropolitan in New York. The exhibition, curated by Vangelis Ioakimidis and organized in collaboration with the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography, will present 200 works from 1971 to today, covering all of his photographic oeuvre; it has five different points of focus: People - Movement – Self – Family – Places.
The First Ιmage - Video-Installations
Macedonian Museum Of Contemporary Art, 11 November-11 December 2009, Opening Hours: 10:00-22:00
The First Image exhibition, curated by Denys Zacharopoulos and presented successfully this past summer at the cultural center of Sete in the Camargue in France, contains the work of 24 Greek video-artists and filmmakers (12 men and 12 women), such as Antoinetta Angelidi and Constantine Giannaris.
Why Cinema Now? - Student Exhibition from The Schools Of Fine Arts Of Athens, Thessaloniki and Florina
National Bank Of Greece Cultural Foundation, Thessaloniki Cultural Centre (108 Vasilissis Olgas St.), 13 November 2009 – 27 December 2009, Opening Hours: 10:00-22:00
Organized by the 50th TIFF and the National Bank of Greece Cultural Foundation and curated by Marion Inglessi, the exhibition includes student projects such as drawings, paintings, etchings and video installations. The projects illustrate the question of what the role of cinema (and, consequently, of art) is today. Selected projects will be also displayed as posters at bus stops in Athens and Thessaloniki.
Majorca’s Mirό In Thessaloniki & Joan Mirό’s Printmaking Workshops
Teloglion Foundation of Art, 6 September 2009- 5 February 2010, Opening Hours: Tue-Thu-Fri: 09:00 - 14:00, Mon-Wed: 09:00 - 14:00 & 17:00 - 21:00, Sat- Sun: 10:00 - 18:00
Thessaloniki Center of Contemporary Art, Festival Pier, 7 November 2009- 7 January 2010, Opening Hours: 09:00 - 21:00
The exhibition includes over 400 of Mirό’s works: painting, sculpture, etching, drawings, sketches; the works cover a period between 1908 and the date of his death in 1983. The exhibition mainly presents mature Mirό in Majorca and the works he created in the workshop designed by his architect friend Josep Lluis Sert in 1956. In addition, the Thessaloniki Center of Contemporary Art presents 47 etchings by the artist. Curated by Marios Eleftheriadis.
CONCERTS & PERFORMANCES
Locomondo concert and Fatih Akin dj set
Friday 13/11 (Warehouse C)
The 50th TIFF opening party will take place after the Opening Ceremony and the film screening. Popular Greek reggae band Locomondo will perform live and Turkish director Akin will then take over the decks for a dj set.
Traffic Quintet
Sunday 15/11(Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Ceremonial Hall, 21:00)
The atmospheric and cinematic creations of the Traffic Quintet, which takes its name from Jacques Tati's masterpiece, have found an ideal partner in the face of Alexandre Desplat, who has made for the Quintet a novel program of free transcriptions centering on the Nouvelle Vague. Together they will perform in Greece for the first time.
Jane Birkin
Monday 16/11 (Aristoteleion Theatre, 21:00)
The musician and actress, attending the 50th TIFF to present Jacques Rivette’s new film, Around a Small Mountain, will also perform in a concert, with music spanning her entire music career and songs written by her most famous collaborator, Serge Gainsbourg, herself and other composers.
The Brockas live with The Muzzled Horse of an Engineer in Search of Mechanical Saddles
Monday 16/11 (John Cassavetes Theatre, 23:00)
The Independence Days section organizes a screening of the film The Muzzled Horse of an Engineer in Search of Mechanical Saddles by Khavn De La Cruz to the accompaniment of live music by The Brockas, an improv band composed of the Philippine filmmakers De la Cruz, Lav Diaz, John Torres and the producer Mei Bastes.
The Prefabricated Quartet live with The Crowd
Wednesday 18/11 (John Cassavetes Theatre, 23:00)
The Independence Days section organizes a screening of King Vidor’s masterpiece, The Crowd, playing to the accompaniment of live music composed especially and performed by Greek band The Prefabricated Quartet
Metamkine
Thursday 19/11 (Alatza Imaret, 22:30)
Metamkine, a trio comprised of musician Jerome Noetinger and filmmakers Christophe Auger and Xavier Querel, produce a new film -or “musico-cinematic” creation- live in each of their performances, through the use of mirrors, projectors, live soundtracks and on-stage editing. They will be performing in Greece for the first time.
STREET CINEMA
For its anniversary edition, the 50th TIFF expands its happenings to the street, communicating its love of cinema in ways that will transform the city itself into a silver screen. Various art, dance and performance groups from Thessaloniki will create more than 40 happenings: amongst them are Lindy Hop, filling public spaces with dancing scenes from films such as Grease, Loxa, who are inspired by the film Run Lola Run and will unleash their own “Lolas” onto the unsuspecting public and Book Crossers, who, using Truffault’s Fahrenehit 451 as a starting point, will follow the “adventures” of old Festival publications displayed throughout the city.
SALONICA STUDIO / FOUR CORNERS ‘09
18 – 23/11
The Salonica Studio educational initiative for university students specializing in writing, film directing and production continues this year as part of the Four Corners training scheme, supported by the MEDIA Program of the European Union. The TIFF, in collaboration with the Film School of the Faculty of Fine Arts of Thessaloniki’s Aristotle University, was one of the founding members of Four Corners along with Spain and UK. The Salonica Studio, inaugurated in 2006, brings together students and graduates from Europe and helps them to develop, finance and produce their first features.
Twelve teams attend screenings, seminars on international funding and sales and many of the festival’s activities relating to their career objectives. This year’s tutors are Ana Sanz-Magallon (analyst and story editor, tutor for institutions such as the University of Granada and Mediscript), Svend Abrahamsen (former Managing Director of the Nordic Film & TV Fund, Head of Filmlines at the National Film School in Denmark), Phil Hughes (screenwriter and script editor for feature films and TV) and Miguel Machalski (screenwriter, feature film creative and development consultant). The Head of Studies is Despina Mouzaki, the Thessaloniki International Film Festival Director. 33 students from 8 different countries (Greece, Spain, UK, Germany, Estonia, Slovenia, Rumania, Bulgaria) will be participating.
