On Tuesday, Alexander Payne’s “Downsizing” opened the 2nd Evia Film Project, in the presence of the two-time Oscar-winning director.
The green initiative was launched by the Thessaloniki Film Festival last year to offer support to Northern Evia following the devastating 2021 wildfires. The event runs to June 24 with an enhanced program.
The films of this year’s edition are a mix of both classics and recent hits, feature films and documentaries. They have been selected to raise awareness, inform, incite to action, bring to light the repercussions of human-driven activities and mankind’s relation to the environment and, last but not least, praise nature’s magic.
Ten films play at this year’s Evia Film Project, which are as follows:
The previously mentioned “Downsizing”; “We Come as Friends” by Hubert Sauper; Dimitris Trompoukis’ “Roots”; “White Plastic Sky” by Tibor Bánóczki and Sarolta Szabó; Juliana Penaranda-Loftus, Brad Allgood and Graham Townsley’s “Landfill Harmonic – A Symphony of the Human Spirit”; “Birdwatchers” by Marco Bechis; “Luzzu” by Alex Camilleri; Marianna Economou’s “When Tomatoes Met Wagner”; Taming the Garden” by Salomé Jashi; and Alejandro Loayaza’ Grisi’s “Utama.”
The films are screening at the open-air movie theaters Apollon in Edipsos and Elymnion in Limni. Abandoned for decades, Apollon was renovated last year by the festival, in collaboration with the municipality of Istiea-Edipsos, and operated as an open-air cinema during the summer of 2022.
As part of the Evia Film Project, Agora, the Thessaloniki Film Festival’s industry arm, opens a new round of activities alongside its annual program at the international film festivals in March and November by promoting the creation of new film projects, in particular those by the Greek film community. The aim is to promote the region and put Northern Evia on the Southeast European cinematic map.
To that effect, Greek and international location managers will take part in a familiarization trip in Northern Evia, with the support of the Hellenic Film Commission. It will introduce sites that could serve as shooting locations for major Greek and foreign productions. A specially targeted case study on Ruben Östlund’s award-winning “Triangle of Sadness,” presented by Heretic’s line producer Danae Spathara, will round off the event, as part of the film was shot in Evia.
Agora also hosts the CIRCLE Women Doc Accelerator, a specialized workshop for the development of docs, addressed to female producers and directors. A series of masterclasses will be held within the framework of this program.
Agora also offers new opportunities for the area’s cinematic development, taking steps toward building a sustainable film industry that will operate on a year-round basis. This is being done by staging a wide range of activities among which are one-on-one sustainable film production consulting sessions.
