PROGRAM EUFORIA II
Cinema in Exile: Documenting Diaspora
Screenings for teachers
Cinema in Exile: Documenting Diaspora
Screenings for teachers
TIFF’s successful European educational program EUFORIA II / European Films for Innovative Audience Development 2016-2017 (Creative Europe, MEDIA) continues with a series of special screenings for teachers titled "Cinema in Exile: Documenting Diaspora".
The event is focused on the concepts of journey, nostos and exile that have always been a source of inspiration for leading filmmakers. From Charlie Chaplin’s The Immigrant to The Silence of Lorna by the Dardenne Brothers and Theo Angelopoulos’ Voyage a Cythera, the search for homeland is a recurring theme in cinema.
Within this framework, the Cinema Museum of Thessaloniki, the Thessaloniki International Film Festival’s educational branch, organizes "Cinema in Exile: Documenting Diaspora", a series of screenings for teachers presenting three documentaries that highlight ideas such as "refugee", "immigration" etc. The event will take place on Wednesday May 31, 2017 at the Museum’s Takis Kanellopoulos theatre at 21:00.
A film workshop will take place before the screenings. The films come from Greece, Poland and Hungary, which are the countries participating in the EUFORIA program. Michalis Kastanidis and Io Chaviara, directors of the Greek documentary Feeling of a Home, will be present in the event.
"Cinema in Exile: Documenting Diaspora" is addressed to teachers, aiming at their further familiarization with the refugee issue and its addition to the educational process.
INFO
Cinema Museum of Thessaloniki – Takis Kanellopoulos theatre: Warehouse Α, Thessaloniki Port, tel. +30 2310508398
The films:
Feeling of a Home
Greece, 2017 – Directed by Michalis Kastanidis & Io Chaviara
Idomeni, 2016. In this small village on the border between Greece and FYROM, an old lady recounts stories about locals who crossed the border and never came back. While her narrations reconstruct the history of the border, some Palestinians from Syria, living in the refugee settlement that has been built right next to the village, decide to set up a kindergarten. Thus, instead of waiting passively for the border to open, they exist in the present, envision the future and create conditions that bring them closer to a feeling of a home.
Lili
Hungary, 2012 - Directed by Nora Ruszkai & Istvan Nagy
The film’s main character is Lili, a 20-year-old exotic beauty who lives in the industrial city of Miskolc in the East of Hungary. She is a typical young girl: She has her own online channel and identity, and her ideas are well-communicated through social media. She works in a tattoo parlour, but she is also interested in animation and Hungarian literature. Lili is a second-generation Chinese, living with her two brothers. Her father is Chinese. They rarely meet, so their relationship is almost completely transferred to the virtual space. Although their communication is at times difficult due to language barriers, the online environment opens up new dimensions for them. This character-based documentary is about Lili’s cultural identity, her self-expression strategies and the complex relationship with her father. As a young adult, Lili is seriously concerned about one single question: How Hungarian or Chinese is she?
I Live Here because I Love / Mieszkam tu bo kocham
Poland, 2017 - Directed by Elena Subina & Malina Dziejkallo
This is a short documentary film about immigrants in Poland. It shows the history of immigrants from a close distance, focusing on the potential, achievements and challenges they have to overcome while living in Poland. It also tells about what immigrants give to Poland and allows the viewers to get to know them better, to understand and accept them. The aim of the film is to promote a positive image of immigrants in Poland. The protagonists of the film are Eduard Bablidze, a ballet dancer from Georgia, the Skryccy family from Ukraine who opened a real estate agency in Cracow and the musician Pako Sarr from Senegal.
About EUFORIA:
EUFORIA (European Films for Innovative Audience Development) is a Film Education strategic plan focusing on Secondary Education and designed to support the idea of film in school, in the framework of cinema's great learning potential. The Thessaloniki International Film Festival is the main administrator of the EUFORIA program, responsible for the organization, coordination and supervision of the program’s common activities applied by the Cinema Museum of Thessaloniki (TIFF’s educational institution), the University of Spoleczna Akademia Nauk – San in Poland and the cultural organization Laterna Magica Kulturalis es Oktatasi Szolgaltato Kft in Hungary.