8/11/2017 54th Thessaloniki International Film Festival: the Festival of Jim Jarmusch - filmiconjournal

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16/11/2013

54 Thessaloniki International Film Festival: the“Festival of Jim Jarmusch”by Angeliki Milonaki | Greek Cinema, Film festival, TIFF

The 54 Thessaloniki International Film Festival (1-10 November 2013) will undoubtedly beremembered as “the festival of Jim Jarmusch”. Not only because the very name and the films ofJarmusch are benchmarks of independent cinema worldwide, but also because the rest of theFestival developed in a quite moderate way in terms of films, filmmakers and events. Despite thecrowds that were gathered outside the festival’s ticket glass cubes, the viewers’ enthusiasm duringthe screenings (most of which were sold out) and the overall cinephilic mood of the public, especiallyamong young people who packed the venues in large numbers (more than 90%), the Festivalprogramme was rather predictable, with no particular surprise regarding films, emerging nationalcinemas or groundbreaking film trends.

Jim Jarmusch and Dimitris Eipides© Motionteam/TIFF

Jim Jarmusch, the legendary “prince of independent cinema”, was the undisputed protagonist ofThessaloniki, where he was invited to attend the Festival as an honored guest, a fact that enhancedthe overall cinephilic atmosphere. Jim Jarmusch’s new film Only Lovers Left Alive premiered inThessaloniki, opening the Festival at the Olympion Theatre. After an eventful parade of publicofficials, who annoyed viewers with their impersonal speeches about the future of cinema, Jarmuschmanaged to calm the spirits and to bring the Festival back to its familiar, mystical rhythms of theviewing experience.

Only the Lovers Left Alive is a strange yet poetic allegory of a vampire couple, who is in search ofeternal love. Jim Jarmusch’s latest film is a contemporary tribute to love and companionship, a filmthat proposes an eccentric yet innovative version of a vampire tale with an exceptional cast (TildaSwinton and Tom Hiddleston as the loving couple) and a brilliant soundtrack, an imaginative musicmixture of rock n roll and post-punk themes. Apart from his anti-star attitude, Jim Jarmusch was afriendly “cinema myth”, a familiar face around the festival’s venues, who was genuinely loved andappreciated by every single cinephile in Thessaloniki. His cool manners presented a rare example ofmodesty and gentleness, which characterizes only truly great artists.

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Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch, 2013)© Motionteam/TIFF

In a similar way, Alexander Payne, the American filmmaker of Greek descent and an oldacquaintance of the Festival, was the second-best honored guest in the event. Payne was appointedPresident of the International Jury, painstakingly watching all of the films of the InternationalCompetition Section from the Olympion’s balcony. Alexander Payne also entrusted the Festival witha special gift, the premiere of his latest film, Nebraska, a tribute to his homeland state, which wasscreened during the closing ceremony. Nebraska presents a unique anatomy of family affairs in thevast American heartland, a sensitive black-and-white road movie and a touching family story withdelicacy, humor and an accomplished cast, with the leading figure of Bruce Dern in the role of thefather, who gave an outstanding performance that was awarded in the Cannes Festival. Nebraska isthe fourth out of six Payne’s feature films, which premiered in Thessaloniki, engaging a euphoricatmosphere of true entertainment that surpassed the unexciting character of an indifferent closingceremony.

Nebraska (Alexander Payne, 2013)© Motionteam/TIFF

Festival awards were monopolized by the Mexican film The Golden Cage by Diego Quemada-Diez(Best feature film - Golden Alexander award, best director award, “Human Values” award of theHellenic Parliament TV Channel) and the French film Suzanne by Katell Quillévéré (Special JuryAward - Silver Alexander, Artistic Achievement Award for Outstanding Achievement as a SupportingActor for François Damiens, best actress award for Sara Forestier).

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The Golden Cage by Diego Quemada-Diez (Best feature film - Golden Alexander award)© Motionteam/TIFF

Is it Weird? Is it Greek? Is it a wave?

Regarding the Greek section of the Festival, there was an apparent inconsistency in the quality of thescreened films as well as an absence of a representative image of recent Greek film production,since only eight Greek feature films participated in the Festival. Undoubtedly the Greek Film Sectionwas weakened, despite the much anticipated films The Eternal Return of Antonis Paraskevas byElina Psykou (which had already been selected and awarded in international film festivals and wouldlater be a winner in Thessaloniki [FIPRESCI award and best actor award for protagonist ChristosStergioglou]) and the emotional drama Wild Duck by Yannis Sakaridis, which were also the twoGreek entries in the Festival’s International Competition.

The 54 Thessaloniki International Film Festival spared little effort to promote contemporary Greekfilm production, contrary to its statutory goals. The Festival could have avoided such a controversy byproviding at least a panorama of Greek films in order to introduce the most representative works ofdomestic film production to both viewers and critics. Instead, the Festival proved rather unwilling toprovide a sufficient overview of recent Greek films, thus resulting in a blurred image of contemporaryGreek cinema, evident not only to the Greek but also to the foreign press.

Miss Violence (Alexandros Avranas, 2013)© Motionteam/TIFF

The emergence of a new generation of Greek filmmakers, who generate international attention bymaking their own cinema in a completely different fashion than their predecessors, was anothercontroversial issue at the 54 Thessaloniki International Film Festival. The special screening of MissViolence by Alexandros Avranas, an award-winning film in Venice, divided the audience andtriggered discussion about the existence of a “Weird Greek cinema” and its identity. What wasinevitably challenged was the role of the Thessaloniki International Film Festival in the enhancementof a national cinema in Greece and its gradual neglect over the years, particularly after theabolishment of the State Film Awards, the non-competitive character of the Festival’s Greek Filmssection and the limited participation of Greek films in Thessaloniki, since the Festival’s unconcernedstandpoint towards domestic cinema and the precondition of a national premiere that the Festivalrequires for Greek films has driven Greek filmmakers to other screening options, like the AthensInternational Film Festival.

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Christos Stergioglou in The Eternal Return of Antonis Paraskevas (Elina Psykou, 2013)© Motionteam/TIFF

However, at a time of tension and domestic controversies, the outstanding performance of Greekactors was a prevalent quality in the Greek Films Section. Special mention needs to be made toChristos Stergioglou for his exceptional performance in The Eternal Return of Antonis Paraskevas byElina Psykou, as well as to Themis Bazaka and Alexandros Logothetis for their dynamic yet sensitiveacting in Wild Duck by Yannis Sakaridis, which echoed the full mastering of their screen presence.

The Festival in numbers

The Festival’s main tribute celebrated the work of French director and writer Alain Guiraudie, whilethe work of Claire Simon, a prolific French director, writer, actress, director of photography and editor,was presented in a spotlight. Both Alain Guiraudie and Claire Simon visited Thessaloniki to attendthe tribute to their works and to discuss with the public. Among the most appraised of their films, onewould find Guiraudie’s Stranger by the Lake / L’ inconnu du lac (2013), which was recently awardedwith best-director award in Cannes, and Simon’s latest film Gare du Nord (2013), a homage to theeponymous train-station in Paris.

The 54 Thessaloniki International Film Festival featured a total of 150 films from 54 countries, andmoviegoers – particularly the younger viewers – warmly embraced the screenings, an encouragingsign of the public’s vivid interest for a different, independent cinema. TIFF’s film market, Agora, whichincluded 300 works, reached a record number of films, with the participation of 100 Greek and 232international professionals. The Crossroads Co-Production Forum and the Works in Progress sectionalso contributed in the promotion of the independent scene, gathering successful professionals fromthe film industry from around the world.

© Motionteam/TIFF

The Balkan Survey section, programmed by Dimitris Kerkinos, celebrated its 20th consecutive yearwith a special tribute to key films presented during those two decades. The Balkan Survey sectionwas also a popular one to the festival goers, as it included highlights of great Balkan filmmakers,such as Lucian Pintilie’s The Oak (1992, Romania), Nuri Bilğe Ceylan’s The Small Town (1998,Turkey) and Goran Paskaljević’s A Midwinter Night’s Dream (2004, Serbia & Montenegro), as well as

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recent Balkan films, like Corneliu Porumboiu’s When Evening Falls In Bucharest or Metabolism(Romania, 2013) and Vinko Brešan’s The Priest’s Children (Croatia, 2013).

The 54 TIFF’s New Horizons, the section with the most promising and innovative trends of worldindependent cinema, launched a new unit entitled Currents, dedicated to new experimental films thatfunction as a field in which cinematic language is explored and redefined. New Horizons featuredalso the acclaimed Roman Polanski in his new film Venus in Fur, the great Japan director HirokazuKoreeda in his sensitive family dramaLike Father, Like Son, the virtuoso Pawel Pawlikowski with Ida,a touching film portrait and the new film of Valeria Bruni Tedeschi’s A Castle in Italy, the story of adisintegrating family.

The 54 Thessaloniki International Film Festival dedicated an entire segment to ContemporaryArgentine Cinema, which brought together young directors and explosive new films from Argentina, acountry that recently recovered from an unprecedented political, economic and social crisis. The filmsthat were screened in the Festival’s tribute to contemporary Argentine cinema spanned a widespectrum of topics and they mainly came out from the Buenos Aires Film Festival (BAFICI) and thegraduates of the film department of the University of Buenos Aires. The most remarkable films of theaforementioned tribute were The Owners / Los Dueños by Agustín Toscano and La Paz by SantiagoLoza.

Special screenings were also held during the Festival in the occasion of the Lux Film Days that hostfilms from the European Parliament’s LUX Prize Official Competition across all 28 Europeancountries. The three selected films of the competition – which were the outcome of the SelectionPanel´s choice and were subtitled in the 24 official languages of the European Union – were thefollowing: Honey (Italy-France) by Greek-born film actress and director Valeria Golino, who visitedthe Festival to support her film, The Selfish Giant by Clio Barnard (UK) and The Broken CircleBreakdown by Felix van Groeningen (Belgium).

Jim Jarmusch and Alexander Payne© Motionteam/TIFF

Pending issues

Although the 54 edition of the Thessaloniki International Film Festival was aptly accomplished,there are still important pending issues to be solved. Primarily, a serious matter has occurred,associated with the forthcoming rental of the four port warehouses cinema halls – the Festival’strademarks at the seafront of Thessaloniki, owned by the local Port Authorities – to the Village FilmsGreece, from December 1 , 2013. It is still doubted whether this complication will affect next year’sedition of the Festival and, particularly, the Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival, which is not yetlegally safeguarded as far as its venues are concerned.

Secondly, there are severe financial cuts in the Festival’s regional events, which will not have theopportunity to travel throughout Greece, as they used to, since this year they will be confined only tocities of Northern Greece. Finally, but most importantly, the 2014 edition of TIFF is not yet financiallysecured. The Festival’s funding that during the 2007-2013 period has been 80% supported by theEuropean Union (European Regional Development Fund, in the framework of the RegionalProgramme for Central Macedonia) is still pending, as this Fund has now come to an end, while thenew European funding programme, which will be TIFF’s major sponsor, has not yet commenced,thus leaving the Festival in a fragile, transitional phase.

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