44 films and hundreds of spectators highlighted possible and unlikely facets of love and revolt as well as the connections between them
Four days of screenings, discussions and celebration concluded on Sunday night. Along with the screening in Athens, the PDSFF traveled to Berlin and Istanbul where we presented and discussed with the audience distinguished films of this year’s event. In the presence of filmmakers from Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, Germany, France, England, Portugal, Belgium, Scotland, Argentina and Canada, the Athenian audience shared feelings and ideas about cinema, politics, love.
For one more year, the festival strived to coordinate with daily life and concerns of the Athenian community. We postponed the Friday morning screening to attend the march against the establishment of private universities and the violation of the constitution while, in view of March 8, Mel Kalfanti, festival coordinator, moderated the discussion-sharing: “Collective memory, personal testimonies: between mourning and assertion” with: Rhea Valden, Brickena Gisto, Zoe Kokka and Maria Louka. On Sunday, in support of the initiative “Filmmakers for Palestine – Greece”, we organised a special screening in solidarity with the Palestinian people free of charge.
The jury of the 5th PDSFF, Sofia Exarchou, Carol Sansour, Chipo Zhou and Tasos Melemenidis, awarded the best film award to the documentary “Suddenly Tv” by Roopa Gogineni and the best Greek production award to “Good Girls Club: A Virginity Odyssey” by Leda Vartziotis and Dimitris Tsakaleas. They also gave two honorable mentions to “Raticide” and “Mariam” by João Niza and Lionel Meta, respectively. The audience voted for Ramazan Kilic’s “Things Unheard of” as their favourite film, while the Festival’s curatorial team gave its award to Mehtap Samiloglu’s “Summer Holiday”.
Tasos Melemenidis, Sofia Exarchou and Carol Sansour announce this year’s awards.
We wholeheartedly thank the creative spirits who shared their stories, the volunteers, the festival workers, the subtitlers, the curators, the interpreters, the guest speakers and all of you who flooded the ASTOR Cinema for your support and enthusiasm. See you soon!
Γιώργος Λόης 📷
Award-Winning Shorts:
