Thessaloniki Documentary Festival Pays Tribute to ‘Audacious’ Docmakers Hitting New Heights

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Hot Docs, North America’s largest documentary festival, has unveiled the projects it has selected for the 24th edition of the Hot Docs Forum, the financing event aimed at securing co-productions and funds for feature length documentaries. The Forum returns in-person to Toronto’s Hart House on May 2 and 3 as part of festival, which runs April 27 to May 7. Nineteen projects representing 16 countries and featuring 23 filmmakers, 12 of whom are women and 11 of whom are black, indigenous and people of color, will pitch to international decision makers and members of the documentary community. An additional Wild Card pitch will be selected live at the Forum.

Christopher Vourlias The Thessaloniki Intl. Documentary Festival wrapped its 25th edition with a muted closing night on Sunday, with festival organizers scrapping an official award ceremony as Greece continues to mourn the loss of 57 lives in a deadly rail accident on Feb. 28. The awards for this year’s festival — including the Golden Alexander, which went to Heba Khaled, Talal Derki and Ali Wajeeh’s “Under the Sky of Damascus” — were handed out behind closed doors earlier in the day. Artistic director Orestis Andreadakis told Variety prior to the festival’s conclusion, “As a sign of respect, the festival canceled from the very start all ceremonies and festive events. In the same spirit, it was decided to call off the closing ceremony.”

“Triangle of Sadness,” paid tribute to the late actress Charlbi Dean ahead of the 2023 award show.Dean died last August at a New York City hospital after getting bacterial sepsis. She was 32.The South African actress starred as the lead character, a spoiled influencer named Yaya, in “Triangle of Sadness,” which is up for awards in three categories tonight.“She was a trouper, a very easygoing, cool person,” Hemmendorff told the Hollywood Reporter in an interview ahead of the ceremony.Reflecting back on making the Ruben Östlund-directed movie, Hemmendorff said that Dean immediately came to his mind when they were casting the film. “So we got a hold of her and asked her, ‘Would you come to Sweden for two days because we are not going to give you a role if you don’t do a real casting with Ruben at our office,'” the producer explained.

This year’s Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF) will open with two local films – Soi Cheang’s noir thriller Mad Fate and the world premiere of Ann Hui’s Elegies, a documentary about contemporary local poetry.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will be missing out on the Academy Awards for the second year in a row.

Tara Karajica Egyptian director Alaa Dajani’s “The Native Dance,” a documentary that tells the story of Younis Abdallah and his comrades who were among the 300,000 peasants conscripted into the Egyptian Labor Corps in 1917, many of whom were dispatched to Europe to dig trenches for allied defense in World War I, took the top prize in the Pitching Forum of the Thessaloniki Intl. Documentary Festival’s Agora Docs industry program, which wrapped Wednesday. The awards ceremony concluded a session that saw more than 400 professionals taking part both in-person and online in the Agora activities. In “The Native Dance,” which is produced by Kesmat El Sayed and Laura Kloeckner (SEERA Films), the jury found “a film that promises a compelling visual approach combining archive material and animation, telling the story about the British forcing peasants from Egypt to dig trenches in Europe during WWI,” read the jury’s statement.

Tatiana Siegel For the past year, Volodymyr Zelensky has been greeted with open arms by awards shows, film festivals and even the New York Stock Exchange. But when it comes to landing airtime on the most coveted telecast of all — the Oscars — the Ukrainian leader is being met with a cold shoulder. For the second year in a row, the Academy has snubbed Zelensky, who was hoping to follow up his Berlin Film Festival (remote) appearance last month with a virtual spot on Sunday’s Oscar telecast on ABC. Sources say WME power agent Mike Simpson made a plea to the Academy to include the comedic actor-turned-politician but was shut down. The Academy declined comment. 

EXCLUSIVE: The Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival in Northern Greece will cancel its closing ceremony Sunday as the country continues to mourn following a fatal train crash that killed at least 57 people, Deadline can reveal.

Christopher Vourlias Stories of war and its devastating human toll, migration across borders, the struggle for human rights and the battle to save a rapidly warming planet are among the themes that take center stage on March 6 during the Thessaloniki Pitching Forum, the co-production and co-financing platform of the Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival. Fourteen projects representing filmmakers from 21 countries will be pitching before an audience of international industry guests including producers, broadcasters, funding bodies and festival programmers, as well as a jury comprised of Eleni Chandrinou, a consultant and producer from Cigale Films; Nevena Milašinović, a sales and acquisitions executive from Lightdox; and Sara Rüster, international distribution manager at the Swedish Film Institute.

Christopher Vourlias The Thessaloniki Documentary Festival has called off its opening ceremony on Thursday as the Greek government declared three days of national mourning following a train crash Tuesday night that claimed at least 36 lives. In a statement posted on Facebook Wednesday evening, the festival said it had canceled its official curtain raiser, “as well as all festive events and concerts scheduled to be held within the framework of the 25th Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival, taking part in the three-day mourning declared following the unprecedented tragedy of the train collision in Tempi. “In these hours of grief and pain, our thoughts are with the families of the victims, to whom we express our most sincere condolences,” the statement read.

Honoring her dad. Ray Liotta’s daughter, Karsen, paid tribute to her late father while celebrating his posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

The competition winners of the 73rd Berlinale are about to start rolling in as the festival draws to a close Saturday evening.

Russian troops invaded Ukraine and, like many people around the world, he felt helpless at the images of people fleeing their homes.“The world felt like it was in a new place that it hadn’t been in decades,” the three-time Grammy winner recalls.On Friday, the one-year anniversary of the war’s start, Paisley is releasing a new song called “Same Here,” featuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaking proudly about his country and people.The song is Paisley’s first from his new record, “Son of the Mountains,” to be released later this year on Universal Music Group Nashville.The West Virginia native wrote the song with Lee Thomas Miller (co-writer on Paisley hits “The World” and “Perfect Storm”) and Dawes frontman Taylor Goldsmith. It’s a three-part narrative that reflects on universal similarities, despite distance and language.While it doesn’t mention Ukraine specifically, the song ends with Paisley and Zelenskyy in conversation, recorded during a video call.

Brad Paisley is marking one year since Russia invaded Ukraine.

Quavo is celebrating Takeoff’s greatness.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor The Berlin Film Festival has returned to its first fully in person edition since 2020. But this year, the Berlinale has come back with a vengeance, and added something that it wasn’t especially known for in its pre-pandemic days: star power. Indeed, it’s been hard not to bump into a famous person in the German city — almost giving this previously mostly auteur driven gathering a vibe that more closely resembles the latest versions of Sundance or Toronto. Artistic director Carlo Chatrian told Variety Sunday that A-list names help raise awareness for the festival’s core mission – to celebrate movies and encourage audiences to return to theaters.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Matt Damon revealed he was in the “early stages” on a project about Ukraine during the press conference for “Kiss the Future” at the Berlin Film Festival. Damon is a producer on the documentary which chronicles the struggle of Sarajevo citizens during the Bosnian War. World premiering in the Berlinale Special section, the politically minded documentary is directed by Nenad Cicin-Sain and based on “Fools Rush in: A Memoir” the memoir of Bill Carter, an aid worker. It shows how his determination resulted in the enlistment of the world’s largest rock band, U2, to help shine a light. Fifth Season and WME handling worldwide sales. Asked if he was considering following the footsteps of Sean Penn with “Superpower” with a film on the war in Ukraine, he said he’s “watched as everyone has with horror that unfolded there in the last year,” and although they “don’t have anything on it right now there isn’t any doubt that we’ll be doing.”

There is a particular kind of audacity reserved for the wealthy and the well-meaning. Multi-award-winning actor and humanitarian Sean Penn co-directs “Superpower” with Aaron Kaufman, known mostly for his commercial work and his collaboration with writer-director Robert Rodriguez.

Christopher Vourlias Sean Penn said he was happy to be a “propagandist” for the Ukrainian war effort and called Russian president Vladimir Putin a “creepy little bully” Saturday in Berlin, after the world premiere of his gonzo documentary “Superpower,” a gripping, courage-under-fire portrait of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. “This is not an unbiased film because this is not an ambiguous war,” he said, calling the conflict “extremely personal.” “I’m very happy to be considered a propagandist. I was happy to make an unbiased film because that is the true story we found.” Donning a black jacket and hoodie and sporting a camouflage trucker cap, Penn repeatedly called on the Biden administration to send precision, long-range missiles to Kyiv to support the Ukrainian war effort.

Sean Penn and a gonzo documentary camera crew found themselves on the frontlines of war as they waited to see if they could interview Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Not only did he land that interview, but he continued to travel back to Ukraine to chronicle the horrors of war a total of six times for “Superpower,” a documentary Penn co-directed that premiered to a standing ovation at the Berlin Film Festival on Friday. In the nearly two-hour-long film, produced by Vice, Penn underlines America’s shortcomings in supporting Ukraine in the war. Zelenskyy, who grows increasingly comfortable around the Oscar-winning actor in a series of interviews, reveals his frustrations at the lack of support in the form of high-impact weapons received from the Biden administration.