– What is your overall concept behind your festival this year?
– This year’s concept is the Anthropocene, a tribute that challenges the audience to approach films through an unexpected point of view. The word derives from the Greek words Anthropos (human) and kainos (new). In our era, the human species does not simply adapt to its surrounding ecosystems. It changes them according to its needs.
– We do not touch upon the #anthropocene simply through the lens of the environment, or from a technocentric angle but mainly philosophically and existentially. We discuss the turbulent relationship between humans and nature, a relationship that started off with the illusion dictating we are the dominant species, Gods’ own chosen people – and that led to a tsunami of reprimands.
– To frame the above, we are also going to print a special book actually, with a collection of texts which explain things further.
– More topics special for your festival?
– This year we are compiling a program full of groundbreaking #animated documentaries which demonstrate how reality can be documented and understood. Also, since documentaries have always been mimicking an action, we gather films which discuss Memes, starting from everyday life and elevate these to the field of social anthropology. Contemporary culture seems to be predominantly consisted by #memes – this «techno-pop» flavored term codifies the current overflow of images, which gradually tend to assert their autonomy and obtain an otherworldly substance.
– Any advice about documentary in the future?
– When watching a documentary, always bear in mind not to seek the truth in every action but look for the truth in the deed’s replication. When watching a documentary, bear in mind that the essence and the foundation of all spectacles was that these were invented in order not to authenticate reality – but to recreate it.
– Why or what event made you personally enter into the doc world?
– It was 22 years ago when #Dimitri Eipides# founded the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival and through his programming, he aimed at providing the Greek audience with alternative sources of information. He has achieved that and brought Documentary filmmaking to the spotlight. We embraced this vision, this is why now, our festival includes four very vibrant competition sections and the Agora – which has become the most important and lively industry event in the Southeast Europe and the Mediterranean.
– Was any documentary seminal to your interest with the genre?
– One of the first films I saw when I set foot in film school was Man with a Movie Camera by #Dziga Vertov#. I had to contemplate long as to what this film is exactly. It made me dispute the boundaries of cinema and narrative forms. This was the first film I could see being screened at a documentary festival.
