65th Thessaloniki International Film Festival: International Competition

The 65th Thessaloniki International Film Festival, which runs from Thursday 31 October to Sunday 10 November 2024, both on-site and online, has programmed 252 feature and short films. In its International Competition Section we will be able to see the following films:

ARCADIA (Yorgos ZOIS, Greece-Bulgaria, 2024) 98’

Zois’ second feature film, it premiered at the Berlinale 2024 and has just won the Best Director award at FIB Sarajevo. In Arcadia, radiant neurologist Katerina has to face her worst suspicions when she accompanies Yannis, a well-respected former doctor, to identify the victim of a tragic car accident in an off-season spa. Together, but also on their nocturnal excursions to a mysterious rustic beach bar, they unravel a haunting story of love, loss, acceptance and abandonment.

The film stars Vangelis Mourikis, Aggeliki Papoulia, Elena Topalidou and Nikolas Papagiannis. Its director, the Greek Yorgos Zois, has seen his films selected at A-list festivals (Cannes, Venice, Berlinale, Rotterdam, Telluride, Palm Springs, etc.) and has been recognised with multiple awards around the world, including Best New Director and Best Short Film from the Hellenic Film Academy, as well as a nomination for the European Film Academy.

EDGE OF NIGHT, Türker SÜER (Germany-Turkey, 2024) 85’

Sinan, a lieutenant in the Turkish army, is assigned to escort his brother, also an officer, before a military tribunal. For Sinan, this mission is the ultimate test of obedience, especially as his father’s disgraceful discharge and tragic end continue to cast a shadow over his otherwise unblemished career prospects. However, things take a dangerous turn when, during the transfer, Turkey is plunged into a night of deep political turmoil. Against the backdrop of the failed coup attempt of 15 July 2016, first-time director Türker Süer crafts a mature thriller that draws comparisons to the cinema of Michael Mann. Edge of Night was selected at the FIC Orizzonti in Venice for its world premiere, and at the Toronto International Film Festival for its North American premiere.

In the world of Edge of Night, not even the bright light of day can dispel the darkness of uncertainty, where every decision could turn into a catastrophic mistake. A film deeply rooted in the aesthetics of the 1980s, complete with an evocative and haunting soundtrack. The cast of Süer’s film includes Ahmet Rıfat Şungar and Berk Hakman.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS  (Scandar COPTI, Palestine-Germany-France-Italy-Qatar, 2024) 123’

Palestinian Copti’s first feature film, Ajami, co-directed with Yaron Shani, received the Camera d’Or Special Mention at the Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 82nd Academy Awards. Happy Holidays, starring Manar Shehab, Wafaa Aoun, Meirav Memoresky and Toufic Danial, tells the story of four interconnected characters who share their unique realities, highlighting the complexities between genders, generations and cultures. Rami, a Palestinian from Haifa, is confronted with his Jewish girlfriend’s sudden change of heart about her planned abortion. His mother, Hanan, faces a financial crisis and becomes embroiled in complications as she seeks compensation for her daughter Fifi’s accident. Miri is forced to deal with her daughter’s depression as she works to undermine her sister’s pregnancy with Rami. Fifi faces the guilt of hiding a secret that jeopardises her family’s reputation and her blossoming relationship with Dr Walid.

JULIE KEEPS QUIET (Leonardo VAN DIJL, Belgium-Sweden, 2024) 100’

The life of Julie, the most promising talent at a prestigious tennis academy, revolves entirely around the sport to which she has devoted herself since her earliest childhood. But everything changes when the shocking news of a young athlete’s suicide upsets the club’s routine. Soon after, Julie’s coach becomes the focus of a police investigation and is immediately suspended from the academy. The incident pushes the other athletes to come forward and share their stories, but Julie chooses to remain silent. Leonardo van Dijl’s debut feature, undoubtedly one of the highlights of this year’s Cannes Film Festival, captures the overwhelming struggle of breaking the silence as a victim of abuse. Each scene is meticulously framed to reflect the sheer weight of unspoken trauma, while Julie’s silence reveals the depth of her internal scars.

With a subtle but powerful performance by tennis player Tessa Van den Broeck, beautifully framed by Nikos Karakatsanis‘ cinematography, Julie Keeps Quiet, which premiered at the Critics’ Week of the 77th Cannes Film Festival, leaves a lasting impression, evoking the same raw emotional intensity as Never Rarely Sometimes Always.

MEAT (Dimitris NAKOS, Greece, 2024) 104’

In a village in the Greek countryside, Takis prepares the opening of his new butcher’s shop. The day before, his son Pavlos kills the neighbour who claims part of his land. The only witness is Christos, a young Albanian who has worked for Takis since childhood. Takis has to decide who will take responsibility. Starring Akyllas Karazisis, Kostas Nikouli, Pavlos Iordanopoulos, Maria Kallimani, Yorgos Simeonidis and Natalia Swift, Meat is the first feature film by Greek director Dimitris Nakos.

ON FALLING (Laura CARREIRA, UK-Portugal, 2024) 105’

Drawing on the long tradition of British social drama, Laura Carreira’s strong debut portrays Aurora, a Portuguese immigrant working in a huge warehouse in Scotland. Crammed into a small flat with five other immigrants from the European periphery, Aurora, lonely and withdrawn, finds herself immersed in the hypnotic repetition of an alienating job, watching her dream of a better life crumble, not with a bang, but with a whimper. Constructed from small gestures and whispers, with the soft breath of crushed expectation of someone struggling to survive with dignity, the film tenderly captures the invisible, melancholic reality of the modern proletariat. The film’s nuanced political stance – peppered with comic touches that subtly mock the rhetoric of postmodern capitalism – never becomes bombastic or preachy, conveying an emotional impact far more powerful than any manifesto.

The Portuguese director’s first feature film stars Joana Santos, Inês Vaz, Piotr Sikora, Jake McGarry and Neil Leiper.

PIERCE (Nelicia LOW, Singapur-Taiwan-Poland, 2024) 106’

Young fencer Zijie’s (Yu-Ning Tsao) life is turned upside down when his older brother, Zihan, is unexpectedly released from prison after serving time for killing a fellow fencer during a fencing match. Zijie’s need to reunite with his brother and believe Zihan’s version of the events that led to his imprisonment is so great that he decides to ignore the disturbing signs and his mother’s persistent attempts to erase Zihan from their lives. In her debut feature, the director, like a fencer, patiently and persistently probes the weak points of the sacred bond between family and brotherhood, dealing a decisive blow to our certainties. Her method is impeccable, starting from the family drama and approaching the edge of the thriller, evoking the unforgettable We Need to Talk About Kevin. Behind their protective masks and uniforms, Pierce’s characters are exposed, vulnerable to their traumas, but keep alive the sparkle of their will to live. Even as they bleed.

SEPTEMBER SAYS (Ariane LABED, Ireland-UK-Germany, 2024) 99’

Ariane Labed was born in Athens to French parents and grew up in Greece and Germany. She studied drama at the University of Provence, where she co-founded the theatre company Vasistas, in which she acted as an actress, co-director and choreographer. Her screen debut with Athina Rachel Tsangari‘s Attenberg won her the Best Actress Award at the Venice Film Festival in 2010, after which she appeared in Yorgos Lanthimos’ Alps in 2011, a director with whom she repeated in Lobster. After her critically acclaimed debut short film Olla, screened at the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, she made her first feature film September Says, presented at the last Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard section.

The director wrote both the screenplay and directed her first feature film, an adaptation of the gothic novel Sisters by Daisy Johnson, who was the youngest author to be nominated for the Man Booker Prize. Building a haunting and mysterious atmosphere, the film tells the story of two inseparable sisters who have created their own fascinating but dark universe. With moving performances by Mia Tharia, Pascale Kann and Rakhee Thakrar, September Says explores the complexities of adolescence through the intense relationship between July and September, two sisters with very different personalities. Despite their bond, the growing tension between the sisters, and also with their single mother, intensifies when they take refuge in an old cottage in Ireland. There, July begins to sense a change in her relationship with September, a change she finds difficult to understand or control. As surreal encounters challenge the boundaries of family, the film delves into the dynamics of identity, independence and sibling love.

SHE LOVED BLOSSOMS MORE (Υannis VESLEMES, Greece-France, 2024) 86’

Three brothers build an unusual time machine to bring their long-dead mother back to life. When their delusional father enters the picture, the experiments go awry and they descend into a psychedelic hellscape where past and present merge in this comic but deeply disturbing exploration of grief. Panos Papadopoulos, Julio Yorgos Katsis, Aris Balis, Sandra Abuelghanam Sarafanova, Alexia Kaltsiki and Dominique Pinon make up the cast of Yannis Veslemes’ film, who also scored the soundtrack.

TO A LAND UNKNOWN (Mahdi FLEIFEL, UK-Palestine-France-Greece-Netherlands-Germany-Qatar-Saudi Arabia, 2024) 106’

The first feature-length fiction film by Danish-Palestinian director Mahdi Fleifel – whose documentary A World Not Ours (2012), premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and garnered over 30 awards, including the Peace Film Prize and Panorama Audience Award at the 2013 Berlinale – had its world premiere at Cannes’ Quinzaine des Cinéastes 2024 to rave reviews and is currently screening at festivals and cinemas around the world. Mahdi’s 2016 short film, A Man Returned, won the Silver Bear and European Film Nomination at the Berlinale, while A Drowning Man was part of the Official Selection at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for a BAFTA Award.

In To a Land Unkown, stranded in Athens, two cousins from Palestine, Chatila and Reda, desperately search for a way to escape uncertainty and misery. Chatila dreams of reaching Germany and opening a small café, while Reda, addicted to his addiction, hinders his path to a better life. Mahdi Fleifel, with a firm director’s eye, constructs a story of painful realism, in which his characters move between hope and despair. Maintaining a profoundly humanistic approach, the film speaks of the human need for dignity and living space beyond the easy clichés. With a thriller-like tension and a compassionate truth that echoes the language of a reassuring neorealism, this is a deeply moving film. As they journey through a daily life marked by their refugee status, its heroes emerge not just as victims of their fate, but as living people struggling against an unforgiving reality, reclaiming their existence in a world that seems to have no place for them.

UNDER THE VOLCANO (Damian KOCUR, Poland, 2024) 105’

In Kocur’s second feature film, a Ukrainian family, played by Sofiia Berezovska, Roman Lutskyi, Anastasiia Karpienko and Fedir Pugachov, are enjoying their holiday in Spain when they suddenly receive news of the Russian invasion of their homeland. Unable to return to Kiev, they go from tourists to refugees overnight, struggling to come to terms with their new reality. This subtle social drama, almost Antonioni-esque in its depiction of emotional paralysis, explores the traumatic effects of a tragic event on the relationships and bonds of people who feel as if the ground has vanished from under their feet. With a melancholic directorial tone that beautifully visualises the fractured psyche of the characters, an elegiac atmosphere and a deep sensitivity, Under the Volcano tackles themes of grief and emotional alienation. It presents a unique and unexpected perspective on the war in Ukraine: Instead of battlefields, corpses and ruined buildings, it delves into the devastated inner world of those who have nowhere left to return to.

Damian Kocur is a director, screenwriter and cinematographer. His first feature film Bread and Salt (2022) was awarded the Special Jury Prize in the Orrizonti competition at the Venice Film Festival 2022 and was also awarded at numerous film festivals such as Cairo IFF, Antalya IFF, Cottbus IFF, OFF Camera Festival Krakow. His latest short film As It Was was nominated for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival 2023.

WENT UP THE HILL (Samuel VAN GRINSVEN, New Zealand-Australia, 2024) 100’

Australian and New Zealand writer-director Samuel Van Grinsven presents his second feature film, starring Vicky Krieps and Dacre Montgomery (Stranger Things), at the 65th Thessaloniki International Film Festival. His first feature film Sequin In a Blue Room had its world premiere at the 2019 Sydney Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award for Best Feature Film, becoming a hit at the festivals where it was screened. In 2020, the film premiered as an Amazon exclusive on Prime Video in Australia, followed by streaming releases around the world.

Abandoned as a child, Jack travels to remote New Zealand to attend the funeral of his estranged mother Elizabeth. There he meets her widow, Jill, who has questions of her own. Over the next few nights, Elizabeth returns and possesses Jack and Jill, using each of their bodies to speak to the other. Jill is confronted with Elizabeth’s suicide, while Jack is confronted with her abandonment. Learning that she is trapped in limbo, Jack begins to doubt Elizabeth’s reason for returning. Caught in a life-threatening nocturnal dance, Jack and Jill must find a way to break free of Elizabeth’s grip before she pushes them over the edge. Went Up The Hill is a psychological drama inspired by writer/director Samuel Van Grinsven’s childhood memories of New Zealand’s South Island. An intimate, modern ghost story that explores the extremes of grief in our eagerness to let go.

Information provided by the Thessaloniki International Film Festival.