Welcome to the 14th edition of the Athens Festival of Avant-Garde Film Festival. This year’s edition once again raises the question of what can a film festival offer without a large budget, glamorous stars, or high-profile sponsors? We believe it provides an opportunity to reflect on key issues: the survival of cinema (“cinema is dead – long live cinema!”), the relevance of archival material as both a theoretical and practical engagement, the relationship between cinema and History, as well as current socio-political issues such as wars, migration flows, and the rise of authoritarian politics. It also highlights the need for the establishment of a long-term archival policy by the Greek state. These reflections resonate with filmmakers, academics, curators, and cultural institutions, and we sincerely thank them for their support.
The International Competition features ten films, most of which come from major international festivals. Dramaturgical devices, such as the child’s gaze, are employed either critically or as a prelude to an ecological and egalitarian utopia. Other films combine external and internal landscapes, depicting the fluid boundaries between the visible and the invisible, the human and the animal, seeking coexistence or rebellion. History appears as a nightmarish present, an unfinished legacy, or a lyrical elegy for an ideal Topos.
In the competitive section Reframing Images, in collaboration with ARTWORKS, twenty-four films are presented. Using multiple formats (8mm and 16mm) and experimenting with effects, handmade animation, artificial intelligence, and archival material, filmmakers from Greece, the Balkans, the Middle East, and the U.S.A. reflect on the limits of cinema and the challenges of contemporary society.
The festival honors the alchemist of images Thanassis Rentzis, a central figure of Greek experimental cinema. His works, including Bio-graphia, Fiction, and Electric Angel, constitute a foundational legacy for the establishment of modernism in Greek cinema.
Thanos Anastopoulos is awarded the Special Prize for his work. He belongs to a generation of filmmakers faced with the dilemma of either committing “patricide” against Angelopoulos or charting their own path. Anastopoulos chose the latter, offering, during the period of crisis, humanist works such as Correction and Daughter.
Within the framework of Arsenal on Location, of the German Film and Video Art Institute and with the support of the Goethe-Institut Athens, the program Movements: Archive and Memory is presented. Ten films explore the concepts of migration and memory, creating a dialogue between works from the archives of Arsenal and the Greek Film Archive. Filmmakers from Greece, Germany, and Egypt will attend the festival, along with the director of Arsenal, Stefanie Schulte Strathaus.
Guest filmmaker Maria Kourkouta curated the program Chantal Akerman – Jean-Gabriel Périot: Making films politically. At the festival, Akerman’s editor and collaborator, Claire Atherton, and Jean-Gabriel Périot will be present, exploring the question: what is political cinema today?
In the Special Screenings, Two Seasons, Two Strangers by So Miyake will open the festival, while at the award ceremony of the Competition, Kontinental ’25 by Radu Jude will be screened; Jude will also present his documentary / The Exit of the Trains. Among others, Singapore Sling by Nikos Nikolaidis will be shown, accompanied by the presentation of the book of the same title.
In Restored and Beautiful, the neorealist Bitter Bread by Grigoris Grigoriou and the documentary Winds by Apostolos Kryonas are presented, restored and digitized by the Greek Film Archive’s new laboratory. The silent masterpiece The Wind by Sjöström will be screened with live music by Lolek. Ehsan Khoshbakht, director and curator of Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna, presents six important restored films from the history of world cinema.
We warmly thank the Minister of Culture, Dr. Lina Mendoni, and the Governor of Attica, Mr. Nikos Hardalias. We also thank the staff of the Managing Authority of the NSRF, Authorwave for sponsoring the award for the International Competition, and especially Mr. Panagiotis Bisdas; ARTWORKS and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, with special acknowledgment to Ms. Katherine Empeirikos; as well as ΕΚΚΟΜΕΔ – Hellenic Film and Audiovisual Center, particularly Mr. Leonidas Christopoulos and Ms. Athina Kartalou. We also thank the representatives of embassies and institutes, the members of the juries, the Board of Directors and collaborators of the Film Archive, NSRF staff, and volunteers.
Maria Komninos
Artistic Director of the 14th Athens Avant-Garde Film Festival
