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Meet the Future: With the gaze directed towards the future of cinema

60^th THESSALONIKI INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL || 31/10-10/11/2019

Meet the Future: With the gaze directed towards the future of cinema

The Thessaloniki International Film Festival, in collaboration with Onassis Foundation, turns its gaze towards the future of cinema. The Meet the Future section that was presented for the first time to the anniversary, 60^th TIFF, introduces 15 directors from Greece, for which we will speak in the future.

Onassis Foundation, which supports daring new voices of the Greek film industry and highlights powerful stories which opt for provocation, challenging, and emotion, will choose two upcoming directors as Onassis Fellows in New York and Los Angeles.

The Meet the Future section presented 15 Greek directors that in the last five years have presented their short films in the biggest film festivals in the world (Cannes, Venice, Berlin, Locarno, Karlovy Vary, San Sebastian, London, Rotterdam, New York, Tribeca, Toronto, Sundance, Busan), or have been nominated for Oscar and have not completed their first feature film.

The participants pitched their first feature film -in preparation- in the Agora of the 60th Thessaloniki International Film Festival. The young directors were navigated by Argyris Papadimitropoulos, director, and Yorgos Tsourgiannis, producer.

In the event, that took place on Friday, November 8, 2019 at the Agora Hub in Warehouse C, at the Pier, the artistic director of TIFF, Orestis Andreadakis said that “Meet the Future is the Festival’s brand-new section, especially designed for the Festival’s 60th anniversary. From now on, we will introduce every year young cinema professionals coming from different countries, or geographical areas. This year we begin with fourteen young Greek directors, the crème-de-la-crème of the Greek film industry.”

Mr. Andreadakis thanked the Onassis Foundation for their collaboration and support of this new initiative of the Festival and gave the stage to Afroditi Panagiotakou, director of the Onassis Foundation's Culture Program.

“We believe that all individuals that come from the milieu of film are professionals, and not men and women that should be punished just because they do what they passionately care about. We believe in individual and professional growth, and that means we are also interested in the idea of process, not just in the project. We have been tied with cinema for years as co-producer, or by giving money to co-productions. We are not just sponsoring; we connect with content. I wish you good luck, and of course luck should be supported. We like collaborations and we are happy to be here, because films make even ordinary lives to become interesting”.

Afroditi Panagiotakou announced that two young directors, participating in the program, will become Onassis Fellows in New York and Los Angeles, and will have the chance to cultivate further their talent and ideas, within the process of developing their first feature film. The selection process will take place in the next few months.

The directors participating in the initiative are: Artemis Anastassiadou, Myrsini Aristidou, Sofia Yeorgovassili, Emma Doxiadi, Vassilis Kekatos, Efthymis Kosemund Sanidis, Konstantina Kotzamani, Stella Kyriakopoulou, Nikos Kyritsis, Jacqueline Lentzou, Vangelis Liberopoulos, Christos Massalas, Loukianos Moschonas, Thanassis Neofotistos and Neritan Zinxhiria.

The initiative of the Thessaloniki International Film Festival and Onassis Foundation supports strong voices, different stories and the new Greek cinema.