62nd THESSALONIKI INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
4-14/11/2021
In the Cut: Editing and its Secrets
A tribute bound to remain unforgettable
The real scissorhands of cinema take center stage at the large-scale tribute of the 62nd Thessaloniki International Film Festival (4-14 November 2021) “In the Cut: Editing and its Secrets”. Nine top-notch editors from Greece and all over the world have accepted the Festival’s invitation and land in Thessaloniki, ready to share their valuable experience with the audience. Masterclasses, workshops, carte blanche to the invitees, as well a special two-language edition, make up a unique tribute to one of the most pivotal stages of the filmmaking process.
Multi-awarded Yorgos Mavropsaridis, a regular collaborator of Yorgos Lanthimos and an Oscar nominee for his work in The Favourite lays out the ways through which editing codifies narrative and conveys its message to the audience. Yannis Chalkiadakis, bestowed with honorary distinctions at the most prestigious film festivals of the world, shares the secrets of his art. Lambis Haralambidis, with an impressive stint in Greek cinema, ranging from the movies of Theo Angelopoulos all the way to the recent blockbuster hit Eftyhia by Angelos Frantzis, correlates the characters of a film to the editing process. Panos Voutsaras, having a rich national and international experience under his belt, sheds light onto how parallel action is achieved through editing. In addition, two world-class editors contribute to the Festival’s special edition: Walter Murch, three times Academy Award Winner both for picture editing and sound mixing, Coppola’s regular working companion and one of the greatest editors of our times, as well as Yorgos Lamprinos, Oscar nominee in the Best Achievement in Film Editing category (for his work in The Father), who converses with director Elina Psykou.
Raúl Mora, editor of the Netflix mega-hit La casa de papel, unveils the techniques of collaborative montage in blockbuster TV series. The duet of Anne Østerud and Janus Billeskov Jansen from Denmark, who have linked their names with some of the most memorable moments of Scandinavian cinema, describe the approach adopted in the film Another Round by Thomas Vinterberg, recipient of the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. Multidimensional Claire Atherton speaks of her journey in cinema and visual art, placing emphasis on her 30-year collaboration with the unforgettable Belgian cinema pioneer, Chantal Akerman. Serbian-American Roland Vajs, who has joined forces with directors such as Martin Scorsese, Ang Lee and Michael Moore, brings along his foley team, demonstrating to the audience, hands on, how sound is added to picture in filmmaking. Do not miss out on the masterclasses and workshops hosted by the 62nd Thessaloniki Festival, from 9 to 13 of November, at the Pavlos Zannas theater of Olympion.
Moreover, the Festival grants carte blanche to all its distinguished guests to each select a film they deem as iconic to the art of editing or highly influential to their career. The editors invited by the Festival will present the carte blanche films to the audience, including, among others, masterpieces by Andrei Tarkovsky, Alain Resnais, Stanley Kubrick and Sam Peckinpah, in screenings held within the context of this year’s Festival.
In addition, the Festival publishes a special two-language edition, mapping the course and exploring the secrets of the art of montage. The invitees elaborate on the carte blanche films, while the director, film critic, editor and film programmer at the Forum des Images, Anastasia Melia Eleftheriou, runs through the historical, theoretical, cultural evolution of film editing, in an editorial titled “Cutting into history”. Furthermore, six men and women from the field of cinema theory and filmmaking practice delve into six scenes/movies that changed the “language” of editing, crafting a timeline of their own depicting the (universal) evolution of the montage philosophy and practice.
Stella Theodoraki focuses on La Jetée by Chris Marker, while Syllas Tzoumerkas juxtaposes the final scenes of the movies The Fear (Kostas Manousakis, 1966) and Α Matter of Dignity (Michael Cacoyannis, 1958), both edited by Giorgos Tsaoulis. Christos Mitsis sheds light onto the famous love scene in Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now, etching the cultural landscape of the time, whereas Giannis Smoilis analyzes the opening scene of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation. Elissavet Chronopoulou approaches film editing through the prism of rupture, centering on Paris, Texas by Wim Wenders, while Spider-Μan: Ιnto the Spider-Verse is caught in Thodoris Dimitropoulos’s web, as he contemplates on film editing in CGI times. Last but not least, the Festival’s edition explores the liaison between film editing and other forms of art, such as comics (written by Thanassis Petrou) and the exhibition venues - installations with multiple screens (written by George Drivas, laying out his own work method). The Festival’s special edition will be available at the Festival’s e-shop, also hitting the bookstores, in collaboration with Nefeli Publishing.
Meet the Future initiative, entirely dedicated to film editing and held for the third consecutive year, is also part of the rich and multilayered tribute of the Festival. The younger generation of film editors from Greece, currently on their way to leave their mark on the national and international scene, will be given useful guidance and invaluable advice from the cream of the crop in the field. The participants in this year’s Meet the Future, apart from the open-to-the-public events of the tribute, will have the chance to attend two closed-session discussions with Yorgos Mavropsaridis and Giannis Halkiadakis and present a showreel of their work to the Greek and international invitees of the Festival. The editors taking part in the Meet the Future initiative are:
Thodoris Armaos (Digger, Berlinale Film Festival)
Stamos Dimitropoulos (The Distance Between Us and the Sky, Cannes Film Festival)
Christos Giannakopoulos (Motorway 65, Honorary Distinction for Film Editing, Drama 2021)
Myrto Karra (Bella, Visions du Réel)
Livia Neroutsopoulou (Postcards from the End of the World, Honorary Distinction for Film Editing, Drama 2021)
Nikos Vavouris (The Eternal Return of Antonis Paraskevas, Berlinale Film Festival)
Giorgos Zafiris (Apples, Venice Film Festival)
