The 18th international documentary festival of Thessaloniki
The greatest challenge that the festival has faced from the very moment of its creation is the representation of reality. In an age where a lot of citizens of the world have easy access to the images and to fast transmission of messages, the role of the documentary in education, information and entertainment appears to be a must. The images of social, historical, political, and more importantly human reality in the 21st century are moving, disturbing, shocking and sometimes entertaining, but they are always the starting point for adventurous explorations. These images meet every March in Thessaloniki, with an enthusiastic audience trying to explore the human nature through the art of the documentary.
First, Citizen khodorkovsky, by Eric Bergkraut, deals with the Poutine politic and economic regime in Russia. It was very interesting to see how one man, fighting again this regime, tried to bring to his country other way of economy. But what was strange is that they revealed that around 70 % of the russian population was agree with the regime of Poutine... And so it wasn't so easy for this Khodorkovsky citizen to change the situation in his own country.
And finally, I saw Assassinat d'une modiste, a french movie by Catherine Bernstein. What was very touching in this documentary is that it deals with the life of a jewish hat dresser during the second world war, and that it was made by the grand dother of this hat dresser ! It was depicting her life and how step by step she became prisoner of the nazis. The documentary was very well built, with a lot of interviews, very personal.
Mathilde Rouch