International Premiere

In two villages in Southern Italy, Basilicata, Vincenzo and Quirino shape zampognas from wood of the surrounding forests. Vincenzo seeks the perfect timbre with an almost scientific ear. Quirino remembers the history of music in the region, and listens differently – the sound emerges from the process itself. For both, music renews bonds to the landscape and their community. 

International Premiere

What have you seen today, bird? follows the reunion of Lula Sheshi, a multi-generational singing group that performs songs in Arbëresh. Arbëresh is an ancient version of Albanian that arrived in Italy when Albanians fled the Ottoman Empire. The language continues to be spoken in San Costantino Albanese, Basilicata, where the singers were raised.

International Premiere

Owen’s Defense is an intimate portrait of community volunteers, children they work with and spaces they occupy. Children and adults reflect on strategy – both on the chess board and in life. Teaching and learning intertwine. Mentors and players reveal how tactical thinking, care and reciprocity, strengthen community and intergenerational bonds. 

International Premiere

Schism traces how a cemetery, an industrial container zone, and a refugee camp converge at the margins of Athens— exposing a shared economy of exclusion in which order and neglect become indistinguishable. 

International Premiere

At Squatted Prosfygika, solidarity drives collective work that is resistance in itself. Glimpses of community life show a living organism of interconnected structures which imagine alternative ways of building common futures.

International Premiere

Every Saturday in the neighborhood of Exarchia in Athens, the farmers’ market happens. This film follows the market from its setup to its closing, showing not only the buying and selling of different products but also the hard, mostly unseen work that goes into it.

International Premiere

Ancient, yet alive, rooted in the neighbourhood of Agii Anargyri, north of the city center, the oldest Olive Tree of Athens stands rooted in memory, story and place. “Meeting Point Eliá” follows the tree’s lines and surfaces as well as its everyday relations with more-than-human inhabitants, neighbours and passers-by.

“In making this short film about Thasos, we were not seeking to depict the island. We were trying to capture something of its magic and its soul.” Staying true to the ethnographic approach he had just introduced with Macedonian Wedding, Takis Kanellopoulos would, with his second short film, continue to chart that unknown Macedonian region where folkloric kitschness co-exists with its critique, nativeness with its negation, and myths with their mode of narration. In Thasos, by the humble means of a limpid and poetic observational gaze, slivers of an island life routine are made into a proposal countering the picture-postcard image of an entire country, at precisely the time when Greece was experiencing its first explosive wave of tourism back in the 1960s. Rhythmic, at times frenzied and bordering on paganistic, structured around traditional folk songs of the Greek islands, with an emphasis on seeking out a sense of familiarity with the “feel” of the island, and with humankind and the natural world set at its heart, Thasos was not screened at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival. It did, however, receive a special mention at the Moscow International Film Festival, and was presented in anthology form at special screenings in Thessaloniki and commercial screenings in Athens, in time earning itself a prominent place within Kanellopoulos’ efforts towards a modernist approach that were renegotiating – at high risk, and with unprecedented decisiveness – the notion of patridognosía [locally-rooted knowledge of one’s homeland].

“And as evening fell, a revelation unfolded within him. He slowly realized that what he was seeking, what he was looking for, the beauty he was searching for, the fairy was the city itself. Kastoria!” The third part of the informal “excursion” to Macedonia – that began with Macedonian Wedding (1960) and continued with Thasos (1961) – Kastoria, with its foreign traveler on horseback seeking a fairy in the modern but rather timeless everyday life of the Macedonian city, closes a perfect cycle of uncompromising documentation right as the curtain rings down on the 1960s. Takis Kanellopoulos has now definitively exchanged history for myth (and its representation), and here he uses it as a bridge between past and present, finally mythologizing a city which, through his gaze, regains anew the characteristics of a rare Greekness, carved from Byzantine ghosts, ancient Greek outbursts, materials of soil and water that are stateless yet deeply rooted in a Greece that remains to be discovered. The film, produced by Giorgos Nasioutzik and awarded Best Short Documentary Film at the 1969 Thessaloniki Film Festival, was the least proprietary of its creator’s works and hard to find – even lost – over the years. It reappeared after a long absence in 2025, not in its original color version, through a network of collectors, providing the opportunity for a comprehensive study on Takis Kanellopoulos’s trilogy, a turning-point for creative documentary in Greece.

An observational documentary that follows two friends on climbing excursions in nature, focusing on the climbing process, their characters, their relationship, and the surrounding natural environment.

A women’s boxing group trains during the COVID-19 period on a typical rooftop (taratsa) in the center of Athens. Two years later, and after the team has ceased to exist, the teammates meet again, revisit their training, talk about themselves and spar.

The literal title of this film by Nikos Koutelidakis, loaded as it is with layers of irony and secondary meaning, serves as an early inkling of what will become overtly apparent right from its opening shots. The camera contemplates the abandoned mansions in the town of Galaxidi, focusing first on the damage done by wear and tear to their exteriors, and then on their vacant interior spaces that once were filled with a human hustle and bustle. The storied past of this place, including details that evoke its former commercial shipping glory, becomes mired inside Galaxidi’s listing around that time as a protected traditional settlement, one that tries to shake off the quaint, nostalgic air imposed upon it by a pivotal decade at its dawn, only to become trapped once more within the guise of the vintage tourist attraction it remains to this day. Without warning, and much as the past intrudes on the present (or much as the imaginary is delineated by the real), Koutelidakis dedicates a ceremony to Galaxidi, a rite of valediction or perhaps of welcome – it makes no difference which. It is the revival of a carnival custom that sweeps you off into a convulsive death ritual before you even get the chance to acclimatize yourself to its beat, setting the tenor of a Dionysian requiem that does not get to complete its melancholy cycle before it folds within it “a documentary” that might well pertain to every place in Greece that watched on as time effaced its defining characteristics, the way rain washes off the paint that adorns the human order, as if in an attempt to reveal its true nature.

In what is considered the most emblematic example of his pioneering approach to blending ethnography with scientific documentation, Roussos Koundouros entrusts the words of Nikos Gatsos to guide us – both as witnesses and as participants – through a nearly metaphysical tradition dating back to antiquity: that of firewalking. A “strange ritual” that the Anastenarides of Eastern Thrace carried with them across Macedonia – from Serres to Veria, from Drama to Thessaloniki. The bizarre, frenzied, Dionysian dance of the Anastenarides becomes the beating heart of a rigorously structured, ritualistic narrative. The film interweaves population movements, sacred icons of Saints Constantine and Helen, animal sacrifices, drums that seem to play by themselves, and bare feet stepping onto burning embers – heated to 500 degrees Celsius – without suffering pain or burns. In the few minutes of its duration, the film pieces together a Greece that still believes in miracles. More than just a documentation of an ancient custom, Firewalkers of Greece also captures the resilience of people who, in their moments of trance, touch something divine – the very God to whom they dedicate themselves. The film was screened at the Karlovy Vary and Florence Film Festivals, as well as at the First Week of Greek Cinema in Thessaloniki in 1960, where Roussos Koundouros was honored by the jury for his invaluable contribution to the field of documentary filmmaking.

Documenting the entire cycle of aluminium production, from bauxite extraction to final processing, and capturing the construction of the industrial infrastructure at Aspropyrgos, Boeotia, in 1960, Roussos Koundouros delivers Aluminium of Greece – one of the first industrial documentaries in Greek cinema, a striking testament to his scientific precision and cinematic vision in recording the radical transformation of the Greek landscape. With no voice-over narration, but guided by Tania Karali’s pioneering electronic score, Koundouros doesn’t simply depict the before and after of an industrial process. In full harmony with his artistic ethos – and almost in defiance of the film’s corporate commission by “Aluminium of Greece” – he challenges the limits of cinematic poetry, using his lens to uncover unexpected beauty, rhythm, intensity, and even a quiet melancholy in the mechanization of progress. In what might have been a dry technical record, he finds sacredness in steel, movement in machinery, and an eerie poetry in progress itself, revealing the human and environmental stakes of industrialization as it reshapes both landscapes and lives.

An immigrant draws parallels between Lebanon and Cyprus through interviews with three Cypriot immigrants. Though their paths differ, one emotion unites them all: the fear of invasion. A reflection on displacement, memory, and the shared weight of leaving home. 

An immigrant draws parallels between Lebanon and Cyprus through interviews with three Cypriot immigrants. Though their paths differ, one emotion unites them all: the fear of invasion. A reflection on displacement, memory, and the shared weight of leaving home. 

On the Tenderness of Men is a speculative cinematic writing on architecture, war, and displacement. It traces the fragmented microhistory of Helsinki’s 1968 Rock Church and its architects’ exclusion from Finnish modernism. Ventriloquizing narrators, the film blurs time, place, and identities, to consider the impact of atrocities on contemporary lifeworlds.

June 1971 – in a landscape completely below sea level, a young biology student dies during the last year of his studies, leaving behind an unfinished scientific collection. Decades later, a group of ecologists and volunteers is trying to understand and document the same environment as it is today.

“The difference between a computer and people is absurdity”: this phrase, one of the first heard in Matheo Yamalakis’s film, is the key to a documentary that unfolds like a joyful revelation. Yamalakis was a sensitive filmmaker whose oeuvre is still largely unfamiliar to the inquiring viewer. His camera wanders around Ios in the summer of 1976, freely, almost associatively recording aspects of a Greek island perched on the cusp between a traditional, pre-modern world and a sweeping shift in mores. Therein lies the absurd, bitter comicality of this perceptive portrayal of the island’s microsociety, which covers everyone: grotesque local dignitaries, storytelling taverna jokesters, cunning small shopkeepers, naïve tourists, young women crushed by the small-mindedness of provincial life. All are woven together in the most effortless, tenderest way, crafting a kaleidoscopic portrait of the Greek archipelago, timeless in its conception and power.

Through the exclusive use of newsreels from Soviet archives, Fοtos Lambrinοs embarks on a historical retrospective, spanning from the dictatorship of Metaxas (1936–1941) to the Junta (1967–1974), in one of the most idiosyncratic “documents” of Greek cinema. This is not a historical film in the strict or even the broad sense of the term. Rather, Visit Greece – its title dripping with irony – is a bold satire that verges on an oblique, experimental ethnography. The film comments on and ridicules some of the most tragic moments in Greece’s recent history, as various “tourists” arrive – uninvited and, more often than not, armed – to impose a regime of their choosing. At the close of the 1960s, in the midst of the Colonels’ dictatorship, Lambrinοs leaves his mark on the reinterpretation of Greek-related newsreels, a field to which he dedicated a significant part of his work in collection and archiving. The film delivers a timeless message of resistance, addressing a hospitable country that has paid, and continues to pay, the price of exploitative tourism-driven development.

In the late 1970s, a reservoir is built on the River Mornos to supply the capital with water. An entire riverside village, Velouchovo, must be abandoned – a forced destruction that seems like a sacrifice in the name of progress. But there is another sacrifice, too: that of an ancient city that once flourished on the same banks and that now, just as it was beginning to be uncovered by the archaeologists, will be flooded forever. Insightful and elegiac, Costas Vrettakos’ film extends in multiple directions at once: a melancholy record of the decay of a traditional community in the mountains of Phocis and a thoughtful archaeological documentary, Layer of Destruction can also be viewed as a gripping thriller, an archetypal struggle of memory against oblivion, as the excavators fight to save the traces of the ancient city from the water level that rises day by day, swallowing everything in its wake. And if the film perceives History as a palimpsest of destruction, if it comments on indifferent and amoral nature that erodes everything, surrendering all to oblivion, its gaze is not a pessimistic one: it is from the viewer’s questioning of what is worth saving and what is not that the memory of the future will be born.

Set against Changshou’s serene beauty, this documentary uncovers the secrets to longevity. Through intimate conversations with locals, we explore how the lake’s tranquility, nourishing food, and rich traditions shape a life of health and vitality. A window into a timeless way of living, where nature and culture nurture the soul. 

Somewhere in Kallithea, the heart of a great love beats. For Mr. Yannis, Kallithea is not just his team but his love, a love that follows him wherever the team goes. Our hero and his beloved Kallithea accompany each other through a match with no predetermined outcome.

Angelos, an elderly café owner in the center of Athens, is at the crossroads trying to decide whether to close his café. The film observes Angelos’ daily life and his interactions with patrons, thus painting a vivid yet marginal Athenian microcosm. 

In the villages of Lesbos, a land charged with history, ancient pagan customs survive, grafted with the Christian faith and the spirit of the Near East. From Sappho to the present day, this fascinating melting-pot conceals secrets. The Dance of the Horses by Christos Voupouras devises a tender – and ingenious – way to reveal them to us: an eight-year-old boy asks his grandmother with childlike innocence about a strange, cruel custom carried out in honor of Saint Charalambos, and the grandmother – the archetypal grandmother of all – unfolds wonderful and frightening stories, tales of faith and infidelity, like a Scheherazade of the Greek countryside. The dense and complex identity of an island and with it a whole country, as it is carved out of and survives in its ancient rituals, emerges brightly lit before the eyes of the viewer, who, for the 64 minutes of the film, becomes an eight-year-old child in their grandmother’s arms.

International Premiere

An observational documentary that follows a group of migrants on their journey aboard freight trains. Not focusing on a specific character but rather on a myriad of faces of people on the journey, the film seeks to convey the liminal experience of the train, as well as the ambiguity inherent in this dramatic journey.

A group of figurines from the Musée de l’Armée in Paris join Napoleon during his expedition in Egypt. The film explores political issues related to militarism and colonization, challenging traditional historical narratives. 

Greek Premiere

Set in the vast expanse of the Foggia hinterland, Commodo begins with the mysterious disappearance of Fabrizio, triggering transformative experiences for those left behind. Among rolling hills, endless roads, and wind farms, Fabrizio’s absence becomes a catalyst for change, pushing the characters toward profound reflection and self-discovery. The narrative delves into themes such as memory, generational migration, and the tension between chosen and biological families, while also addressing the impact of substance abuse. This multifaceted exploration offers a rich, emotional journey, inviting viewers to reflect on their lives, the absence of love, and the role of institutions. Ultimately, the story provides a deep meditation on the search for truth and love.

In 1974, shortly before launching the legendary Paraskinio [Backstage] along with Lakis Papastathis, which was to define a new era in Greek TV documentary, Takis Ηatzopoulos visited Gazoros, a small village of tobacco workers in Serres, with “two people, a 16mm camera and a tape recorder.” He was to record more than the everyday life of a place marked by the struggle of making a daily wage, the heartache of emigration, and the ground zero of a whole country in violent transformation. True to his principles that “there is no cinema outside the class struggle” and that “documentary is created, reconstituted, composed in the editing room,” he separates the villagers’ narratives (of which the film exclusively consists) from the images of their daily lives, liberating an incalculable amount of authenticity based on human toil, survival, and the dream of a better life. While it feels as though he is preserving the historical memory of the place, essentially letting the village tell its own story, Hatzopoulos also engages in a timely political commentary on this very need, disrupting the established anthropogeography of the Greek countryside and the concept of poetry as it sneaks into the documentation. The microcosm of Gazoros becomes Greece in miniature, his documentary forming a testimony that is both historical and timeless. Best Production Award, 15th Greek Film Festival, 1974.