Thessaloniki Documentary Festival Fronts Queer Cinema, Flies Flag for Greece’s LGBTQ Community After Historic Same-Sex Marriage Law

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent “Dahomey,” the Berlinale Golden Bear-winning film helmed by French-Senegalese director Mati Diop, has been sold to a raft of international territories by Les Films du Losange. Along with being acquired by Mubi in key markets, “Dahomey” has been acquired in Australia & New Zealand (Rialto), China (Hugoeast), Spain (Filmin), Portugal (Nitrato Filmes), Greece (One From the Heart), Scandinavia (NonStop Entertainement), Benelux (Cinéart), Bulgaria (Beta Films), Ex-Yugoslavia (Discovery), Hungary (Mozinet), Czech Republic (Film Europe), Romania (Voodoo), Baltic Countries (Taip Toliau), Poland (New Horizons), Ukraine (Kyivmusicfilm), Taiwan (Joint Entertainment), Indonesia (PT Falcon) and Sudu Connexion in Africa.

Holly Jones Premiering in January to a Sundance Dramatic World Cinema Grand Jury Prize, “Sujo” from “Identifying Features” filmmakers Astrid Rondero and Fernanda Valadez has expanded its global reach, closing multiple distribution deals forged by Paris-based Alpha Violet, who heads international distribution. Paris-based Damned Films has picked up the title for France while Twelve Oaks Pictures, Trigon Films, Cinobo and MCF Megacom have swooped on the film for Spain, Switzerland, Greece and Cyprus and Ex-Yugoslavia territories respectively, with Auckland’s Vendetta Films securing rights to the title for the Australia and New Zealand markets.

Callum McLennan Ancient Greek Aristotle got it right. The production whole is greater than the sum of its co-production parts. This was the sentiment at a Series Mania session titled ‘Fifty Shades of Co Pro’ on Tuesday.

Lise Pedersen Swiss documentary film festival Visions du Réel has unveiled the program for its 55th edition, which includes 10 first films out of 15 in the main international competition, cementing its reputation as a springboard for emerging talent. The official selection includes 165 films from 50 countries, with gender parity for the second-year running, and no fewer than 88 world premieres, making VdR the place to be in April on the international non-fiction film calendar.

A dad-of-three slowly suffocated in front of his wife as medical staff said they could do nothing to ease his suffering.

Iranian filmmaker Farahnaz Sharifi’s My Stolen Planet won the Golden Alexander at the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival today, automatically qualifying the film for Oscar consideration.

Christopher Vourlias Iranian filmmaker Farahnaz Sharifi‘s “My Stolen Planet,” an intimate family portrait of life during Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, won the Golden Alexander at the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival on Sunday, bringing a close to an emotional and politically charged week in Greece’s second city. Using both the director’s personal archives and 8mm recordings of strangers’ lives, the film — which world premiered in the Berlin Film Festival’s Panorama strand — uses an essayistic style to present the joy and vitality of life in Tehran in the 1970s, in contrast with the oppression imposed on the Iranian people by the country’s hardline regime.

Comic Relief has been slammed by some viewers of the annual telethon after Mollie King was seen just hours after completing her epic cycling challenge for the charity in memory of her late dad.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Memento International has closed a raft of deals on “Fremont,” a critically acclaimed film starring Anaita Wali Zada, an Afghan refugee and first-time actor, and featuring “The Bear” actor Jeremy Allen White. Directed by BAFTA-nominated Iranian-born director Babak Jalali, the black-and-white movie tells the story of Donya, a young woman working at a Chinese fortune cookie factory in the San Francisco bay. Formerly a translator for the U.S.

Christopher Vourlias Palestinian director Hana Elias’ “If These Stones Could Talk,” which follows a Palestinian man’s return to his homeland to restore his family’s ancestral garden, and Argentine filmmaker María Silvia Esteve’s “Mailin,” about a woman’s painful struggle to overcome her childhood trauma, took the top prizes at the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival’s industry award ceremony Wednesday night. During an emotionally charged conclusion to the festival’s Agora strand, in which several filmmakers voiced their strident support for Palestine and called for a ceasefire to the more than five-month-old Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, a tearful Elias took the stage alongside producer Asmahan Bkerat to receive the top prize in the Agora’s pitching forum, a €10,000 ($10,900) cash prize from the International Emerging Film Talents Assn. (IEFTA).

The theatre company behind Oldham Coliseum has announced its spring and summer programme will be staged at a pop-up theatre. Its comes almost a year after the organisation bid farewell to its home on Fairbottom Street after losing its Arts Council England funding.

In one of the most compelling films to hold its world premiere at the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival, archive footage shows an apparently amiable man dressed in black sitting for an interview with a Yugoslav journalist. The year is approximately 1977.

Greece’s Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival is reacting with shock to an incident Saturday night in which two LGBTQ people were attacked by a huge crowd in a square outside one of the festival’s main screening venues.

Christopher Vourlias A shocking attack on a transgender couple in plain view of hundreds Saturday night has rattled filmmakers and guests at this year’s Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, which has a spotlight on queer cinema as one of the focal points of its 26th edition. During the terrifying episode, which took place around 10:30 p.m.

The Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning film A New Kind of Wilderness has bowed at the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival in Greece, marking its European premiere.

Alexei Navalny’s sacrifice for democracy is being recognized in the place where the concept of government by the people first flourished.

Christopher Vourlias Paris-based sales outfit Cat&Docs has acquired “Unclickable,” Greek director Babis Makridis’ investigation into the murky world of digital ad fraud, ahead of its world premiere March 10 at the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival. Variety has been given exclusive access to the film’s trailer (see below).

A pharmacist has alerted folks about three key signs of cancer that can first appear in the morning.

In parts of the Balkans, a remarkable tradition exists: women known as Burrneshas take on societal roles typically confined to men. They assume the physical appearance of men, adopt men’s names or nicknames, and operate with a freedom and power denied women in patriarchal cultures.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent A rare flagship indie producer left on the French market, Bruno Nahon‘s Paris-based company Unité is preparing to conquer international audiences with “Rematch,” a period psychological thriller chronicling the historical battle between world chess champion Garry Kasparov (Christian Cooke, “That Dirty Black Bag”), and IBM’s supercomputer Deep Blue in 1997. The sprawling show, directed by Yan England (“The Red Band Society”) and co-created with Nahon and André Gulluni (“Sam”), was commissioned by Arte in France and has already been sold by Federation Studios to major outlets around the world, including HBO Europe for Spain, Portugal, the Nordics, Iceland, Baltics, Central Europe, Greece and the Netherlands.