PETER GREENAWAY - GOLDEN ALEXANDER AWARD
On Tuesday, November 23rd, the Thessaloniki Film Festival honoured the subversive director Peter Greenaway with a Golden Alexander Award in a special ceremony at Warehouse C at the Thessaloniki Port. Peter Greenaway’s trilogy, The Tulse Luper Suitcases will be screened in the framework of the New Horizons section. “Mr. Greenaway is one of the most prominent representatives of contemporary European cinema”, said the Director of the New Horizons section, Dimitri Eipides. “We are extremely delighted to have him here with us even if it’s for only one day, especially in between the shooting of his new film being shot on location in Warsaw, so he can be present for the screening of his trilogy. On account of his visit, the Festival has decided to honour Mr. Greenaway with the Golden Alexander Award for his contribution to cinema”, added Mr. Eipides. The award was presented by Hungarian director and President of the International Competition Jury, Miklos Jansco.
Peter Greenaway revealed his thoughts about the future of cinema and his efforts to revive it with his trilogy. “Cinema, just like any other form of art, has to reinvent itself and set new goals. It is a game between the director, his images and the audience; a social, political and deeply aesthetic game”, he said. Regarding his trilogy, Mr. Greenaway characterized it as a “manifesto” of the digital revolution which, “has changed cinema. The audience today is between 16 and 30 years old, and when they will grow up and become wiser, we must find ways to approach it. Today’s cinema is more like an illustrated novel or a videotaped theatrical performance. Cinema, though, must be something different. We need a cinema that can fulfil the two basic requirements of our digital age: interaction and multimedia”.
The trilogy The Tulse Luper Suitcases fulfils these requirements. For its production, Mr. Greenaway used High Definition technology and well as special equipment from the Netherlands for its screening at the Festival. According to Mr. Greenaway, he’s visiting Thessaloniki in order to broaden his communication with the audience and promote his film. “We must reorganize. We have to re-educate the audience for the post-digital age. My audience is comprised of three categories. The first category contains the people who decide after the first five minutes that they’ve made a mistake and leave. The second category is the people who give the film a chance and leave annoyed after 40 minutes. The third category includes the people that watch the whole film and return to see it again. If I’m able to persuade 33% of the audience to stay, then I can say that I’ve succeeded”, he said.
According to Mr. Greenaway, he utilizes new technologies to present his work to a larger number of people. “We have to move away from the concept of screening in cinemas. This can be achieved with the new technologies. I enjoy my films and the fact that I can include you in them as well. Cinema is only a small part of a much greater phenomenon”. “We transcend the barriers of culture. DVDs’ image quality and longevity provide us with new prospects. They are a powerful medium. I think they were invented especially for me”, he added.
Finally, Mr. Greenaway spoke about the starring role of his film, Tulse Luper. He described him as combination of all the exceptional people he’s met, and having fictitious as well as autobiographical characteristics; a character that exists even after the end of the film. “Using new technologies we are able to decompose elements or develop new ones”.
