When the Thessaloniki International Film Festival’s industry arm, Agora, kicks off this week in Greece’s second city, organizers will be looking to expand upon recent additions to a time-tested formula that’s served the event across nearly two decades as a launching pad and incubator for Greek and regional talent.
“We’ve been doing the Agora since 2005, and we have slowly but steadily established it as one of the markets where you can find new talents and emerging directors from this region,” says industry head Angeliki Vergou, who took over from longtime Agora topper Yianna Sarri last year. “I think we are maintaining the essence of Agora that we have developed all these years, but just tweaking it a little bit to make it more available and more open to bring in new opportunities.”
In her second year in charge of the Agora, Vergou is looking to build...
“We’ve been doing the Agora since 2005, and we have slowly but steadily established it as one of the markets where you can find new talents and emerging directors from this region,” says industry head Angeliki Vergou, who took over from longtime Agora topper Yianna Sarri last year. “I think we are maintaining the essence of Agora that we have developed all these years, but just tweaking it a little bit to make it more available and more open to bring in new opportunities.”
In her second year in charge of the Agora, Vergou is looking to build...
- 11/1/2023
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
The Greek Film Festival in Berlin 2023 This was the 8th edition! And I was so honored to be on the jury! Closing the Greek Film Festival in Berlin with a short ceremony in a pleasant and warm atmosphere, with the directors of the program, Sofia Stavrianidou, Elisa Deftos, Yianna Sarri and Konstantinos Aivaliotis, as well as the jury consisting of Mirja Frehse — Senior Funding Media, Sydney Levine — International Film Business Consultant and Panagiotis Evaggelidis — Director Screenwriter, the 8th Greek Film Festival in Berlin at Babylon in Berlin Mitte brought down its curtain. With about 40 professionals present, filmmakers, producers, actors, sales agents, musicians Greek and foreign, many dear friends and a completely sold out hall, the Emerging Greeks Award and for the first time Documentary Award were presented. The Emerging Greeks Award 2023 went to Black Stone by Spiros Jacovides. The Emerging Greeks Award accompanied by 1000 euros sponsored by the Greek Film Centre went Black Stone by Spiros Jocovides, a film “that brings a specially lighthearted approach to some very important topics that torture contemporary Greek society: overbearing Greek mothers, racism and immigration among other things. A family tale, told with love, hard irony, and humor”. While filming absent civil servants, a documentary crew stumbles upon Haroula, a desperate, overprotective Greek mother in search of her son. But when he is accused of fraud, Haroula sets out with her other disabled son and a Greek-African taxi driver to bring him back home where he belongs — even though it means discovering who her son really is. The Documentary Award accompanied by 500 euros sponsored by the Musou Music Group went to a film that “shines a light on a real wound of our society today, driven by patriarchal principles. We are following a courageous woman survivor tackling a problem, that affects at least 50% of our population”. This documentary film looks into femicides in Italy, where one woman is murdered every three days. By focusing on a particular case that rocked the country, the film tries to understand the reasons behind the phenomenon.
- 4/6/2023
- by Sydney
- Sydney's Buzz
As the Thessaloniki Film Festival kicks off its 63rd edition, this year’s industry section features the pilot edition of a dedicated television strand and the launch of a Think Tank series calling on European film markets to chart a common course for industry confabs in the future.
Such initiatives are part of newly appointed industry head Angeliki Vergou’s mandate to steer the annual event through uncertain times for the global film industry even as the growing Greek business continues to surge, thanks in part to a 40 cash rebate that has lured international productions such as Ruben Östlund’s Palme d’Or winner “Triangle of Sadness” and Rian Johnson’s Netflix blockbuster “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.”
With its Agora Series section, Thessaloniki will hope to capitalize on a raft of new high-end TV productions looking to put Greek drama on the map.
“There has been such a...
Such initiatives are part of newly appointed industry head Angeliki Vergou’s mandate to steer the annual event through uncertain times for the global film industry even as the growing Greek business continues to surge, thanks in part to a 40 cash rebate that has lured international productions such as Ruben Östlund’s Palme d’Or winner “Triangle of Sadness” and Rian Johnson’s Netflix blockbuster “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.”
With its Agora Series section, Thessaloniki will hope to capitalize on a raft of new high-end TV productions looking to put Greek drama on the map.
“There has been such a...
- 11/6/2022
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
For the first edition of the Evia Film Project, a new initiative launched by the organizers of the Thessaloniki Film Festival, the festival’s industry arm, Agora, hosted a series of events looking to bring both environmentally focused films and sustainable film production to the fore. The program was designed to help revitalize Greece’s second-largest island, which was hit by a devastating series of wildfires last summer.
Speaking to Variety ahead of the festival, Agora head Yianna Sarri stressed the importance of getting the global film community to rethink its ways of doing business in order to make the industry more environmentally friendly. “Sustainability will be in our lives and will stay there – it’s something that we must all really work hard to achieve if we want this planet to continue to exist,” she said.
At a workshop held in the seaside village of Limni, industry members from...
Speaking to Variety ahead of the festival, Agora head Yianna Sarri stressed the importance of getting the global film community to rethink its ways of doing business in order to make the industry more environmentally friendly. “Sustainability will be in our lives and will stay there – it’s something that we must all really work hard to achieve if we want this planet to continue to exist,” she said.
At a workshop held in the seaside village of Limni, industry members from...
- 6/20/2022
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
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