The French-language Film Festival of Greece returns March 21 to 29, 2023 for its established spring date with the public, with a rich program and in more cities. In addition to Athens (Danaos, Astor, Auditorium Theo Angelopoulos of the French Institute of Greece) and Thessaloniki (Pavlos Zannas, Stavros Tornes), this year’s Festival will be held simultaneously in Larissa (Victoria Cinemas), Patras (Pantheon), Chania (Attikon) and Heraklion (Cultural Conference Center of Heraklion).

“The Festival is here to remind us that cinema, a popular and democratic art, is always “present” when you need it, ready to comfort you, open new horizons, offer you the pleasure of entertainment and stimulate the curiosity and reflection” said at today’s press conference the president of the Festival and director of the French Institute Nicolas Eybalin and the artistic director of the Festival, audio-visual media follower Theodoris Koutsaitis.

As they emphasized, “more than ever, this year’s festival seeks through its programming to encourage the return of the public to cinemas”. At the beginning of the interview, they mentioned the tragedy in Tempi: “This tragedy, which cost the lives of 57 of our fellow human beings, the vast majority of them young children, shocked us as well as all Greeks. Our thoughts are with all our fellow human beings who were lost prematurely and we share the grief of their close friends and relatives” they noted.

Program in seven sections

This year’s event raises the curtain on Tuesday, March 21 at the Pallas with Francois Ozon’s latest film, “My crime,” which was released in French theaters a few days ago, and will close on March 29 at the Danao with Martin Bourdoulon’s film, ” The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan’, which will have its official world premiere in early April in France (Entry to the premiere and closing will be by invitation, and a limited number of public tickets will be available).

The festival program, with 51 feature films, 6 medium and 12 short films, is presented in 7 sections and will give the public the opportunity for 9 days to discover films in advance premieres, exclusive screenings, meetings with actors and parallel actions.

Ten films are presented in the Competition Section, 6 films in special screenings, while the Francophone Cinema Panorama highlights 17 films that have not yet found Greek distribution. This year, in fact, the significant participation of French-speaking embassies led to the creation of a separate section in the festival program, the Panorama of French-speaking Embassies, with participations from Belgium, Canada, Luxembourg, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Romania and the People’s Republic of Congo.

The event also hosts an extensive thematic tribute, entitled “Gender and Cinema”, which presents, through 8 films, an overview of the evolving representation of the gender spectrum on the French-speaking big screen, from 1933 to 2023.

The White Card is given this year to the film festival of Brive – Rencontres Internationales du moyen métrage, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary. This one-of-a-kind festival promotes the medium-length film form that highlights the talent of creators more than any other, and shares with us six films from its recent events. Two feature-length documentaries, a film workshop and a special program of short films for cinephiles 6+ make up the “Youth Screenings”.

In the parallel actions of the festival, the entire documentary testimony of Simone Weil about her experience in the Auschwitz extermination camps will be presented for the first time in Greece, in the context of a special installation, in Athens and Thessaloniki. Finally, two open discussions will be organized with foreign and Greek invited professionals about the form of the medium-length film and the prospects for development and attracting audiences to cinemas.

Support for Greek partners and creators

At the 23rd edition of the Francophone Film Festival, the French Institute of Greece is giving practical examples of its support to Greek collaborators and creators.

In particular, this year’s edition is a co-organization with Unifrance, the International Film Festival of Thessaloniki, the Film Festival of Chania and the Cultural Conference Center of Heraklion. Furthermore, it cooperates with the Greek distributors for the competition section of the festival and the special screenings, while it collaborates with the Athens International Film Festival – Premiere Nights, the Animasyros festival and the Athens International Children’s and Adolescent Film Festival – ATHICFF for the presentation of special and youth films projections. It is also working with Mooviereel and the Petit Plan festival to create a questionnaire to get to know its viewers better and what they think about the films.

This year’s jury of the festival is made up of the director and screenwriter Yiannis Economidis who will also be the President of the committee and Katia Goulioni (actor), Phoivo Delivoria (musician, actor), Anna-Maria Papacharalambous (actor) and Fotis Sergoulopoulos (presenter, actor).

Single ticket price for all screenings: 6 euros. Tickets go on sale on Wednesday, March 15, 2023. More information at https://www.ifg.gr/events/23o-festival-gallofonou-kinimatografou/.