March 18th, 2016

The 18th international documentary festival of Thessaloniki

For some days, I was a volunteer for the 18th international documentary festival in Thessaloniki. I helped to count votes from the public after some projections, in order to decide which movie could win the audience award.
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.

During this festival, I was able to watch 6 different documentaries. I will make a short description of them in order to depict a small impression of what you can find in this event.
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.

Homme Less, by Thomas wirthensohn, was a very touching documentary about the situation of one homeless man in New-York. The filmmaker followed him for some time in order to show his way of life. The homeless was a fashion photograph and a model before, and this documentary show very well how we could all fall into this situation.

Starless dreams, by Mehrdad oskouei is an iranian movie about the life of some young criminal girls. It shows how they felt in criminal acts, of how they were treated in there family or by mens around them. It was a very hard story, but necessary to understand how in some cultures women are very oppressed.

New life, by Alexia Tsagkari and Suspended people, by Stratis Vogiatzis and Thekla Malamou were two very short documentaries of around 25 minutes. They deal with the romas civilization, and how they live whithout any nation for centuries. It was very interesting to see how they live, in what they believe, and how works this particular society. They are between dreams and reality, and always have to deals since they're young with the fact that they have no nation to represent them, and that they will live all there life in societies which denie them. This theme was very atypical, it's not common to be able to understand more these people who are just next to us but that we don't know.

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.

If I had an advise for you now would be to see by yourself these amazing documentaries ! It really help to enlight some hide parts of our societies, and help to understand some phenomenon. Finally, it help to stay open minded.


Mathilde Rouch