The Big Chief
COLD WAR: A gripping archival documentary explores the life of a Soviet intelligence legend caught in the web of 20th-century persecution and historical ambiguity.
Stalin
The Helsinki Effect
DIPLOMACY: With a gently satirical outer wrapping and a deadly serious inner core, Arthur Franck’s account of the seminal Helsinki Agreement of 1975—The Helsinki Effect—demonstrates just how historic a diplomatic process that was at the time seen as tedious and irrelevant really was.
An intense look at the centre of Ukraine during war
UKRAINE: Part reportage documentary and part poetic road movie, Voyage Along the War shares what everyday life looks like in a war-torn country.
«We select visually powerful documentaries that function well on the big screen»
goEAST: With the 24th edition currently underway, Modern Times Review spoke with its Director Heleen Gerritsen on her role, inspirations, the festival’s place within a broader continental sphere, and more.
Totalitarianism then and now
IDEOLOGY: A disintegrated society finds unity, energy, and meaning by uniting around a suitable’ enemy’. Totalitarian propaganda has led to the decision to allow Ukraine to use F-16 fighter jets against the nuclear power Russia – with the significant consequences it may entail.
The end – and beginning – of history
ALBANIA: The country’s transformation was fraught with difficulties. On the altar of freedom, factories went bankrupt, jobs disappeared, and thousands fled to Italy on overcrowded ships.
Battle royale
NAM: In a documentary diptych, Mila Turajlić examines the birth of the Non-Aligned Movement via an expansive unexplored archive of former Tito cameraman Stevan Labudović.
Living in the trash
IDENTITY: From the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, an intense look into the lives of the neglected and forgotten.
Thessaloniki Documentary Festival announces 24th edition competition films
The three competition sections of the 24th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival—International Competition, Newcomers Competition and >>Film Forward Competition—cast a critical and
The soldiers who refused to die
CONFLICT: A Soviet soldier of Tatar descent captured by the Nazis during WWII leads to a story of an army caught between dictators.