How the Thessaloniki Film Festival Is Adapting to Remain a ‘One-of-a-Kind Experience’ for Greek Audiences and an ‘Essential Actor’ for the Local Industry

Adam Sandler worked with his entire family for his new Netflix animated film Leo and they all walked the red carpet together at the premiere!

The Peasants would already be a daunting project in the best of times. Like their previous film, Loving Vincent, directors Hugh and DK Welchman oversaw a team of animators painting each frame of the film based on live-action reference material. Hugh, who came to Los Angeles from Poland just for his 12-minute Contenders panel, said The Peasants also had to work around COVID and the Ukraine War.

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor “The Kissing Booth” actor Taylor Zakhar Perez says he was surprised by co-star Jacob Elordi’s criticism of the rom-com franchise. “I thought it was a shame because to my knowledge, everybody else had such a wonderful experience,” Perez told me Thursday at the GQ Men of the Year party at Bar Marmont in West Hollywood. “It’s a shame that was his experience on the set.

Juliette Binoche, Marion Cotillard and Jacques Audiard are among 500 French cinema professionals to have signed an open letter in support of a silent march for peace in Paris this Sunday.

Christopher Vourlias Sofia Exarchou’s “Animal” won the Golden Alexander at the 64th Thessaloniki Film Festival on Sunday, marking the first time in 30 years that a Greek film took home the top honors at the country’s longest-running film event. Exarchou’s sophomore feature, which premiered at the Locarno Film Festival, was praised by Variety’s Jessica Kiang as “a poignant portrait of life amid the sequins and the seediness of a Greek resort.” The film follows a group of entertainers at an all-inclusive island resort preparing for the busy tourist season who are forced to wrestle with the dark reality that the show must go on as the sultry Mediterranean nights turn violent.

Marta Balaga India Donaldson picked up the Polish Film Institute Award for her upcoming feature “Good One” at the American Film Festival in Wrocław, coming with a $50,000 cash prize for post-production in Poland. “It’s an affirmation of how we have been working and what we have been working towards,” Los Angeles-based Donaldson told Variety after the ceremony. “Good One” – presented during AFF’s industry event U.S.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Auto-bio Pamphlet,” a Marathi-language film that is both a love story and a rage against class divisions, will open the 18th edition of the Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival later this month. The festival will close with the world premiere of spy thriller “13 Bombs in Jakarta.” JAFF run Nov.

The Simpsons, detailed in an op-ed for The New York Times his first meeting with Perry, who died aged 54 last month (October 28).“We met almost 40 years ago, and he was, by far, the funniest friend I ever had,” Azaria wrote. “He also was the person who helped me get sober.”Perry, who had been open about his struggles with drugs and alcohol throughout his life, took Azaria to his first A.A.

With just over three weeks to go until December 1, now is the perfect time to get your hands on your beauty advent calendar before it's too late. There’s already been plenty of them hitting the shelves (and selling out), but with new ones being launched every week, you don’t need to miss out on a beauty-filled Christmas countdown.

Karamo Brown is spilling some tea after hanging out with the cast of Vanderpump Rules behind the scenes at BravoCon 2023.

Sarvnik Kaur’s documentary Against The Tide won the Golden Gateway Award at this year’s Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival, while the Silver Gateway Award went to Bahadur – The Brave, directed by Diwa Shah. The Special Jury Award went to Kanu Behl’s Agra. 

Agora, the industry section of Greece’s Thessaloniki International Film Festival, kicks into gear this weekend with an eye on expansion as industry head Angeliki Vergou and her team introduce a series of changes to the established event.

Naman Ramachandran Bangladeshi filmmaker Nuhash Humayun’s “Pett Kata Shaw” won best international feature at the 31st Raindance Film Festival‘s jury awards. British documentary filmmaker Kit Vincent won best U.K.

Adam Driver will be the guest of honor at this year’s Camerimage Film Festival, where he will receive the Special EnergaCAMERIMAGE Award for an Actor and present his Michael Mann-directed biopic, Ferrari.

Savina Petkova There is an ample tradition of historical dramas set in Interwar Poland, but there’s rarely one made by a woman director. Anna Jadowska wants to fill in this gap with her new project, “Tethys Ocean,” which will be presented at Thessaloniki Film Festival’s Agora Crossroads Co-production Forum next week. The story unfolds in 1938, as seven-year-old Wiktoria is being sent from a village near Kraków to become a servant at the mansion of a wealthy family where her older cousin also works.

Christopher Vourlias When director Yorgos Lanthimos approached production designers James Price and Shona Heath with a vision for his latest feature, “Poor Things,” the Venice sensation and Golden Lion winner that’s landed the filmmaker and lead actress Emma Stone at the forefront of this year’s Oscar race, the notoriously meticulous and demanding director had no shortage of notes for the duo. Nor did he have any reservations about the scale of what he wanted to achieve.

Greece’s Thessaloniki International Film Festival returns this evening for its 64th edition with a screening of The Pot-au-Feu (The Taste of Things), the latest film by French-Vietnamese director Trần Anh Hùng. 

Christopher Vourlias When the Thessaloniki International Film Festival’s industry arm, Agora, kicks off this week in Greece’s second city, organizers will be looking to expand upon recent additions to a time-tested formula that’s served the event across nearly two decades as a launching pad and incubator for Greek and regional talent. “We’ve been doing the Agora since 2005, and we have slowly but steadily established it as one of the markets where you can find new talents and emerging directors from this region,” says industry head Angeliki Vergou, who took over from longtime Agora topper Yianna Sarri last year.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor International sales agency the Playmaker has signed a deal with Blue Finch Film Releasing to distribute the one-shot horror film “Home Sweet Home — Where Evil Lives” in the U.K. and Ireland. Thomas Sieben’s film, which made its world premiere in August at FrightFest in London, has its market premiere at AFM.

the genius of Robin Williams, when he died in 2014, and they won’t question the genius of Perry, who died Oct. 28 at the too-young age of 54 — and created comedy gold for 10 years as a shining star in the “Friends” firmament along with Jennifer Aniston, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Courteney Cox and David Schwimmer.Perry was at the head of that supersized comedy class with his wisecracking Chandler Bing, one of the most indelible characters in television history.