Premiere Nights about to kick off in Athens theaters
Nine sections, three tributes, 146 short and full-length features comprise the 13th Premiere Nights Athens International Film festival, which begins this Thursday with the French-American production «Persepolis,» an animated drama that received the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, by underground comic-book artist Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi. The Premiere Nights Film Festival, now named Premiere Nights Conn-X after its sponsor, has been inaugurating the new film season in the Greek capital for the past 12 years. Especially loved by the city’s youth (42 percent of the festival’s audience is in the 17-24 age range and 55 percent is aged from 25-44), the event is mainly focused on indie and experimental productions, though there is no shortage of mainstream fare as well. This year, there is a new competition section titled Music and Film, one of the most popular subcategories of the festival. Also, the festival has now moved its headquarters to the Ianos bookstore on Stadiou Street, which will host the open discussions and master classes while also providing a meeting point for official guests. Among the guests expected this year are Academy Award-winning director William Friedkin (delivering a master class on Tuesday, September 24, at 2 p.m.), filmmaker Zoe Cassavetes and actress Jane Birkin, who will also give a small concert. Documentaries will also feature quite prominently at this year’s Premiere Nights. Of note are a portrait of famed photographer Annie Leibovitz, the European premiere of Daniel Karslake’s «For the Bible Tells Me So» (which explores the clash between religion and homosexuality in the USA and how the religious right has used its interpretation of the Bible to stigmatize the gay community), the documentary «Manufacturing Consent,» in which Rick Caine and Debbie Melnyk scrutinize Michael Moore’s methods, and «Zoo,» a dark and controversial documentary by Robinson Devor about the death of a Seattle businessman after having intercourse with a horse. Also in the documentary section is a subcategory dedicated to the environment, the proceeds from which will be donated to the victims of last month’s forest fires. The short-film section has also grown and will include a tribute to the work of award-winning filmmaker Norman McLaren. On September 28, moreover, there will be a screening of a series of five-minute films made by Greek filmmakers for a program titled «Images of Digital Culture,» among which we will see the work of Constantinos Yiannaris, Katerina Evangelakou and Penny Panayiotopoulou. The Cinema on the Edge section will feature a collaboration with the 1st Athens Biennale and will include a tribute to Nina Menkes. The festival’s three major tributes will be on Indian artist Buddhadev Dasgupta, Germany’s Max Ophuls and on underground movement B-movies of Grindhouse, which began in the US in the 1960s. As usual, screenings will take place at the Attikon, Apollon and Danaos 1 & 2 movie theaters and will run until September 30.
