BOOK PRESENTATION
The cafe at the Photography Museum of Thessaloniki was packed on Tuesday November 17 for the KEMES (Cinema Study and Research Centre, a non-profit association) presentation of the book THE FESTIVAL’S 50 YEARS: OUR FAVOURITE FILMS, published especially for the Festival’s 50th anniversary.
The edition is a compilation of the comments made by thirty famous Greek cinema personalities -covering the entire range from film directors, to critics and directors of various film organisations- on the film they loved best in the fifty years of the Festival.
The following core members of the KEMES association led the presentation: Despina Mouzaki, TIFF director, Vassilis Kechagias, director of the Thessaloniki Cinema Museum, and film critics Stavros Kersanidis and Alexis Dermentzoglou.
In her speech Despina Mouzaki said: “This edition evokes that magical moment when Greek cinema and the Festival first got together. The films that have won a special place in the hearts of each one of the book contributors.”
Vassilis Kechagias mentioned the protagonist role played by Alexis Dermentzoglou in this KEMES edition, as well as his important role as film critic underlining his ‘frankness’ and ‘daringness’. Mr Kechagias then talked about future KEMES publications: “A possibility for future editions could be to link foreign film trends, attitudes and actors with what is happening on the Greek film scene and its audiences.”
Film critic Stratos Kersanidis commented on how important it was that the book was published to celebrate the 50th Festival anniversary. “I want to point out that the various contributions to the edition were made with total freedom of expression and choice of film. This same freedom will be a landmark in all our future KESMES activities.”
Finally Alexis Dermentzoglou talked about the negative elements in the world of Greek cinema: “a Greek cinema that is not independent, a cinema that doesn’t bite”. He then added: “KEMES fundamental goal is to keep up the effort of taking free initiatives. Private initiatives, not state initiatives. We prefer to rely on the support of all true friends of cinema to continue our research.”
