Documentary festival celebrates 10th anniversary
Lavrion’s Technological Park will come alive once more, as the 10th Mediterranean Documentary Festival is about to kick off. With screenings of Greek and foreign films, exhibitions, a concert and a discussion, the festival will take place October 6 to 9. This will be the second year that the event, which started in Samos, will be held at Lavrion, at a venue that is striking in itself. Transformed by the National Technical University of Athens, the Technological Park, proudly carrying the weight of the region’s industrial history, still retains 1860-70s architecture as well as old machinery, which adds a special flavor to the screenings. The festival, organized by the Prefecture of Eastern Attica, the Union of Greek Film Directors and Producers and other institutions, promises a more relaxed and stress-free atmosphere than the usual film festival frenzy, since it comprises no competition section, as the association’s president, Nikos Kanakis, pointed out. «Our aim is to present a different kind of documentary to the ones shown on television. We want to make the audience really think about the issues the films deal with,» he said at a press conference yesterday. The main program will consist of the four established thematic sections, «Political Documentaries,» «Work,» «Immigration» and «Portraits,» with films from Spain, France, Italy, Israel, Lebanon, Tunisia, Turkey, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, Cyprus and Greece. «Critics’ Suggestions» is a brand-new section in which a film critic presents a film of his or her choice. This year, Andreas Tyros, president of the Greek Film Critics’ Union, has opted for Portuguese filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira’s 2006 drama «Belle toujours,» a tribute to Luis Bunuel and a follow-up of Bunuel’s classic «Belle de jour.» Tyros will also lead the discussion that will follow the screening. Other highlights include a new collaboration with the Videopolis Festival from Italy’s Veneto as well as the small tribute to French documentary filmmaker Raymond Depardon, organized jointly with the French Institute. Veteran filmmaker Michael Cacoyannis will also be honored on the opening day. «The foreign documentaries are recent productions. Where Greek documentaries are concerned, we try to dig out the ones that have remained hidden away in directors’ closets for years and bring them to the surface,» said the festival’s artistic director, Vassilis Vafeas. He made special mention of Stathis Katsaros and Giorgos Sifianos’s 1981 «Petrohimika» documentary, which was voted Best Film at the Thessaloniki Film Festival that year and will be screened on October 7. As part of this year’s parallel events, Savina Yannatou and Primavera en Salonico will perform melodies from the Mediterranean as well as from across the world; last year’s festival had featured a concert by Dionysis Savvopoulos, Stavros Lantsias and Giotis Kiourtsoglou. Two exhibitions, one with large-sized film posters and another with sketches of leading Greek characters, both organized in collaboration with the Thessaloniki Film Museum, will be on display at the Technological Park and the Old Mechanics Shed respectively. An exhibition of paintings by Julia Guerrero, titled «From the Mediterranean to Latin America,» will also run at the Old Mechanics Shed. «What we try to do, with new and old films, music and art, is bring back to life a venue that is filled with memories,» said Vafeas. The event is mostly funded by the prefecture, but is also sponsored by various institutions, including ERT Greek Radio & TV, the Greek National Tourism Organization and the Greek Film Center among others. Plans for pre-festival events that will spread across Eastern Attica are currently under consideration. For information: tel 210.825.3065, 210.503.3050-2.
