16th Ethnofest – Athens Ethnographic Film Festival
25–30 November | ASTOR · 1 December | Greek Film Archive · 1–7 December | Online
TICKETS ARE NOW AVAILABLE AT MORE.COM
THIS IS THE PROGRAM OF THE 16th ETHNOFEST!
The Ethnofest – Athens Ethnographic Film Festival returns for its 16th edition, both in cinemas across Athens and online throughout Greece, presenting documentaries from all corners of the world. Human experience—across time, space, and culture—remains the festival’s core. Staying true to its vision, Ethnofest approaches cinema as a space of empathy and dialogue, where the act of looking becomes a tool for understanding both others and ourselves.
TRIBUTE: “Geography of the Gaze: Off-Plan Greece (1950–2000)”
This year’s edition, in collaboration with the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, hosts the tribute “Geography of the Gaze: Off-Plan Greece (1950–2000)”. This cinematic journey through the Greek countryside, presented through rare documentaries by seminal filmmakers, sheds light on collective memory and cultural identity, highlighting cinema as a living archive of our social and intellectual heritage.
SPECIAL SCREENINGS: BALLET, by FREDERICK WISEMAN
Thirty years after its original release, the festival honors and presents—for the first time in Greece—Frederick Wiseman’s landmark documentary Ballet. Focusing on the American Ballet Theatre, Wiseman follows rehearsals, classes, artistic meetings, and performances, illuminating the unseen and intensely demanding world behind the perfection of the stage. Through his signature long, unedited scenes, he highlights physicality, discipline, and the constant negotiation between authority and creativity—all elements defining a major artistic institution. The first part centers on choreographers’ working methods, while the second follows the company on a European tour, including stops in Athens and Copenhagen. A masterful portrait of the American Ballet Theatre, it remains a defining work of observational cinema.
SECTION: SIGHTS FOR SORE EYES
This expanded and renewed section merges the former Panorama and Experimentation in Ethnography programs, embracing works that challenge our certainties and refresh the cinematic gaze on the world through hybrid, experimental, and deeply human-centered narratives. From the favelas of Rio in Circo (Lamia Chraibi) to architectural memory and displacement in On Human Tenderness (Minou Norouzi); from the traces of a missing scientist in From Here, I Seem to Belong (Emilia Auhagen-Kuoppamäki, Leon Emonds-Pool) to a subtle observation of women’s labor in Women Artisans (Gavriela Gerolemou), the program forms a mosaic of different worlds. The section opens our gaze to gold hunting and myth in Under the Moriche Palms (Chris Gude), to a veteran’s journey of self-discovery in New Beginnings (Isabelle Ingold, Vivianne Perelmuter), and to reflections on art amid genocide in Un-Filming (Bilal Alkhatib). Memories of Cyprus emerge in both Screen Recording 2020–11–20 at 1.59.44 PM (Argyro Nikolaou) and A Breath on the Pavement of Strangers (Cindy Chehab), while family loss becomes an invocation to listen in Listen to the Voices (Maxime Jean-Baptiste). A section of films-as-worldviews, urging us to look again—and more attentively—at what we often overlook.
ETHNOFEST x BIENNALE
The presentation of Stes Pétres (Taşlara) by Sevina Floridou and the Fisherwomxn collective—representing Cyprus at the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale—bridges ethnography, art, and traditional technique, revealing the Cypriot landscape as both language and living archive of memory.
STUDENT SECTIONS: INITIATIONS
This year, the festival upgrades “Initiations: Greek Student Films” into a National Competition Section, highlighting new voices and innovative works emerging from Greece. “Initiations: International Student Films” includes films created within educational programs and international summer schools, offering insight into how young creators worldwide approach field research through collective and creative methods. Together, these two sections embody the heart of a new generation of filmmakers: works conceived within universities, collectives, and summer schools, where early cinematic gestures meet experimentation, observation, and personal testimony. Small but powerful stories that foreshadow tomorrow’s documentary. By connecting academic research with student production—and lived experience with films centered on daily practices, personal stories, and local communities—the section underscores the learning of cinematic and ethnographic language as a process of exploration and experimentation.
INITIATIONS: GREEK STUDENT FILMS
Escape to the Rock (Angelina Reka) follows two friends on their climbing excursions and their growing relationship with the natural environment. Kallithea, My Love (Antonis Gallios, Raphael Klaridopoulos, Giorgos Kritikós) focuses on a man’s love for his team and his neighborhood. In The Terrace (Dimitra Chryssoula), a women’s boxing group reunites after COVID-19, recalling their training and experiences. At the Lake (Efi Anagnostidou) uncovers the secrets of longevity through conversations with locals. The Café Will Remain Closed (Magda Alexandri, Anna Chrysanthakopoulou) observes the daily life of an elderly café owner. In Pissed Off on Themistokleous 13 (Dimitra Paraskevou, Marianna Nikolaidi), the everyday concerns of Gen Z unfold in a bustling Athens apartment. Handetia (Theodora Efstathopoulou, Nikoleta Laskidou) highlights the sound and memory of bells in Drama.
INITIATIONS: INTERNATIONAL STUDENT FILMS
The Meeting Point, the Olive Tree (Nimal Bourloud, Lienke Roos, Hannah Hertzberg) follows Athens’ oldest olive tree as a living monument of human-environment relations. Mr Boki’s Ghost (Esther Carlin) blends fiction and reality to explore silence and loss. The Beast’s Path (Pedro Valtierra Anza) traces migrants’ journeys aboard freight trains. What Did You See Today, Bird? (Tiziano Locci, Anna R. Japaridze) reveals the vibrancy of the linguistic and musical traditions of Italy’s Arbereshe community. Daily life and collective action also emerge in Don’t Park Here on Saturdays (Myrto Greve, Sarah Krause) and Owen’s Defence (Hannah Knox, Emma Tsoneva), while The Crack (Laura Cadena, Dephne Kuzucu, Antonios Somarakis) exposes shared economies of exclusion at the margins of Athens. Finally, films such as All One Forest (Giovanni Astorino, Panos Achniotis), The Sound of Wood (Margherita Vita, Emelie Victoria Isaksen), Apoléon (Amir Youssef), Komodo (Elettra Gotti), and Common Language (Harra Garramone, Eszter Kalman, Anna Lehmann) highlight the diversity of ethnographic practice—from relationships with nature and history to collective resistance and social structures.
Through all these encounters, Ethnofest continues to build bridges between cinema and ethnography, artistic inspiration and social research—celebrating the many ways we make sense of and narrate the world around us.
ONLINE SCREENINGS
From 1 to 7 December, part of the festival will be available online, featuring the following films:
Circo | Sights for Sore Eyes
Women Artisans | Sights for Sore Eyes
New Beginnings | Sights for Sore Eyes
INITIATIONS: Greek Student Films:
Pissed Off on Themistokleous 13
Escape to the Rock
The Terrace
Handetia – Mapping the Sound
At the Lake
Kallithea, My Love
The Café Will Remain Closed
Selected by the Ethnomusicology and Cultural Anthropology Lab (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens):
An Element of Hope (Greece 2025, 23’) – Dir. Natalia Koutsougera, Giorgos Danopoulos
Kefi: The Story of FDF, the Greek Orthodox Folk Dance Festival (USA 2020, 42’) – Dir. Patti Testerman
PARALLEL EVENTS
18:00 | Tuesday, 2 December | AULI Cultural Heritage
In collaboration with Ethnofest, the Ethnomusicology and Cultural Anthropology Lab of the University of Athens presents two films (available online) and hosts an open online discussion.
DANCE AND THE ETHNOGRAPHIC CAMERA
Open online discussion
What does the camera “see” when it “looks” at dancing bodies? This conversation explores the relationship between cinematic gaze and ethnographic approaches to dance practices, examining how the camera can record, interpret, and convey experiences of the body, community, and identity through movement. Inspired by the films Kefi: The Story of FDF, the Greek Orthodox Folk Dance Festival (2020) and An Element of Hope (2025), featured in Ethnofest’s online program, directors Patti Testerman, Natalia Koutsougera, and Giorgos Danopoulos speak with the team of the Ethnomusicology and Cultural Anthropology Lab (NKUA), sharing insights from their longstanding engagement with the cinematic representation of diverse dance traditions, cultural groups, and performative contexts. Members of the #DanceMuse research project from the Laboratory of Language, Folklore and Culture (University of Ioannina) also participate.
For more information on accessing the discussion online, visit: <a href=”#”>www.ethnofest.gr</a>.
Tickets for screenings are available <a href=”#”>HERE</a>.
16th ETHNOFEST – Athens Ethnographic Film Festival
25 November – 7 December 2025
For more information and updates: <a href=”#”>www.ethnofest.gr</a>
Contact: [email protected] / [email protected]
<a href=”#”>Website</a> | <a href=”#”>Facebook</a> | <a href=”#”>Instagram</a>
Ticket prices:
€6 per screening | €4 for students and unemployed visitors
Free screenings operate on a first-come, first-served basis.
Online screenings: €3 per film
The 16th Ethnofest – Athens Ethnographic Film Festival is held with the support of the Greek Film Centre, the Centre for Audiovisual Media and Creation (E.K.K.O.ME.D.), and the Directorate of Modern Cultural Heritage of the Ministry of Culture.