The president of this year’s jury of the International Competition Program will be the multi-awarded Vassilis Kekatos, the first Greek director to win the Palme d’Or for Short Film at the 72nd Cannes Film Festival, with his fourth short film “The Distance Between Heaven and Us”.
The artistic director of the Drama Festival, Yiannis Sakaridis and the president of the Festival, Giorgos Demertzis announced the films that qualified for the International Competition Program, the International Study Program and the International Animation program of the 45th edition of the Drama Festival, which this year will be held by the 5 to 11 September.
The president of this year’s jury of the International Competition Program will be the multi-awarded Vassilis Kekatos, the first Greek director to win the Palme d’Or for Short Film at the 72nd Cannes Film Festival, with his fourth short film “The Distance Between Heaven and Us”.
This year’s program of the International Competition includes 15 films from all over the world (from India to China, and from France to Argentina). Three Greek films are competing: “Memories of a Teenage Storm” by Sofia Georgovasilis, “On the Throne of Xerxes” by Evi Kalogiropoulou and “Under the Lake” by Thanasis Troumpoukis.
14 films are participating in the International Student, while two Greek women are competing: Ariadni Angeliki Thifronitou Letos with “Love you more than peanut butter” and Semeli Safou with “What’s left”.
In International Animation, 20 films are competing – among the three Greek ones: “The Honorable Madame Lien Moulin” by Eleni Xoupa, “In Between” by Efi Pappa and “A Night in the Cemetery” by Stelios Polychronakis.
THE CRITICAL COMMITTEES
The jury of the International Competition Program consists of: Vassilis Kekatos (Director), Basim Magdy (Experimental Artist – Filmmaker), Claire Diao (Distributor – Film Critic).
The jury of the International Student Competition Program consists of: Argyris Papadimitropoulos (Director), Themis Bazakas (Actor), Lena Divani (Writer).
The jury of the International Animation consists of: Sperer Sebastien (Member of the Annecy International Animation Film Festival), Maria Anestopoulou (Program Director of Platforma Video and the Animasyros Festival), Panagiotis Kyriakoulakos (Assistant Professor of Film Informatics – University of the Aegean and audiovisual producer and interactive projects).
INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIVE
As noted by Giorgos Zois, head programmer of the International Program, “this year’s selection includes special narratives mainly about youth and the impasses of everyday life that he experiences while at the same time desperately searching for the foray into heaven. Realistic and metaphysical stories that acrobat a tightrope and sometimes dare to play casually with the very form of cinema.”
“Techno, Mama”, Saulius Baradinskas (Lithuania)
“Foster”, Jordi Wijnalda (Netherlands)
“August 13th”, Ventsislav Lyubenov Sariev (Bulgaria)
“Memoir of a Veering Storm”, Sofia Georgovasili (Greece)
“Bon Voyage”, Jiawen Li (China)
“The Salamander Child”, Théo Degen (Belgium)
“Threatened Love”, Héctor Herce (Spain)
“On Xerxes’ Throne”, Evi Kalogiropoulou (Greece)
“The Calf”, Mostafa Vaziri (Iran)
“Terra Incognita”, Adrian Dexter – Pernille Kjær (France)
“Under the Lake”, Thanasis Troumpoukis (Greece)
“The Saboteur”, Anssi Kasitonni (Finland)
“Cherries”, Vytautas Katkus (Lithuania)
“Plurabelle”, Sacha Amaral (Argentina)
“Murmurs of the Jungle”, Sohil Vaidya (India)
Out of Competition
“Air Hostess-737”, Thanasis Neofotistos (Greece)
“Tea and Time”, Salah El Amri (Switzerland)
INTERNATIONAL STUDY PROGRAM
According to Thanasis Neofotistos, head of the International Student Department, “this year we will see films about the much-discussed diversity, about human sexuality with its various manifestations, about burning political issues, about human relationships and their difficulty. Films that approach their subject matter in a way that is authentic, contemporary and artistically daring. We met young filmmakers who are worthy representatives of their time and generation and who I hope will continue to tell cinematic stories with the same sensitivity and interest. All this under the umbrella of a new initiative of the Festival: the Student Campus, which aspires to make Drama a meeting place and exchange of ideas for young filmmakers!
“On the Edge”, Matteo Sanders (Austria)
“Before Pandemic and War, There Were Bed Bugs and Love!”, Nuruzzaman Khan (India, Czech Republic)
“Matapacos”, Karla Riebartsch -Lion Durst (Germany)
“All that Remains”, Semeli Safou (Greece)
“I Should Feed my Cat”, Abram Cedra (Belgium)
“An Extra Day in Prague”, Jacob Ramsay (Czech Republic)
“Darker”, Frank Van Den Bogaart (Belgium)
“The Dependent Variables”, Lorenzo Tardella (Italy)
“Laika & Nemo”, Jan Gadermann – Sebastian Gadow (Germany)
“Lonely Fans”, David Oesch (Switzerland)
“Corrupted”, Juan Cifuentes Mera (Chile)
“Any Place”, Minerva Rivera Bolaños (Mexico)
“Love you More than Peanut Butter”, Ariadni Angeliki Thifronitou Letos (Greece)
“After a Room”, Naomi Pacifique (Netherlands)
INTERNATIONAL ANIMATION
As the person in charge of the program, Spyros Siakas, notes, “the selection of films was made based on, on the one hand, pluralism and the variety of creative techniques and, on the other hand, the special approach and highlighting of emotions and everyday situations through different and , many times, unexpected angles. In this context, the program is structured by films with two-dimensional and three-dimensional techniques, stop motion and computer animation on topics that approach both human relationships and important issues of our planet, highlighting diverse and complex emotions. The main goal is the active participation of the Drama audience in watching animation films, entering the world of stories and deeply understanding the principles of this art form.
“Spirit of the forest”, Nandini Rao -Nipura Rao -Kalp Sanghvi (India)
“Brother nature”, Sophie Bird (UK)
“Hi! How are you?”, Gaia Grandin-Mendzylewski (France)
“Idodo”, Ursula Ulmi (Switzerland)
“Farm well”, Pepijn Robben-Lucas De Man (Netherlands)
“Mouse house”, Timor Leder (Slovenia)
“The perfect fit”, Meinardas Valkevicius (Lithuania)
“Autosaurus rex”, Marcel Barelli (Switzerland)
“Gut feelings”, Vanessa S. Valliere – John Gregorio (USA)
“Miriam”, Radu Nicolae (Romania)
“The incredible Mrs Lien Mourlen” Eleni Xoupa (Greece)
“Meal on the plate”, Chenglin Xie (USA)
“Hysteresis”, Robert Seidel (Germany)
“Little smasher”, Gilles Cuvelier (France)
“Bardo”, Aisling Conroy (Ireland)
“In between”, Efi Pappas (Greece)
“The garbage man”, Laura Goncales (Portugal)
“The pink jacket”, Monika Santos (Portugal)
“My father’s damn camera!”, Milos Tomic (Slovenia)
“A night at the cemetery”, Stelios Polychronakis (Greece)
RES-EMP
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