67th Thessaloniki Film Festival Honours Nikos Grammatikos

The 67th Thessaloniki International Film Festival, taking place from November 5 to 15, 2026, will present the Honorary Golden Alexander to director and screenwriter Nikos Grammatikos. The tribute will include a retrospective of seven feature films and four short films, a conversation with the filmmaker and a special publication dedicated to his career.

The Thessaloniki International Film Festival has a particularly close relationship with Nikos Grammatikos, one of the most acclaimed directors in contemporary Greek cinema. It was at this very festival that he presented his first feature film, received his first awards and found an audience that has followed his development for more than three decades.

The festival’s 67th edition will revisit his work through a retrospective tracing the different stages of a filmography characterised by an exploration of personal conflicts, human relationships and the transformations of Greek society.

The tribute will culminate in the presentation of the Honorary Golden Alexander, recognising his contribution to cinema.

Born in 1963 on the Greek island of Salamis, Grammatikos studied film and mathematics. Between 1984 and 1994, he helped produce the radio programme To sinema sto G΄ Programma, alongside directors Antonis Kokkinos and Yannis Karypidis.

His career encompasses seven feature films and five shorts, as well as teaching at various acting and film schools in Athens.

A Filmography Between Realism and Poetry

Grammatikos’s cinema combines a realistic perspective on society with a poetic dimension that emerges through the construction of his characters and their inner conflicts.

His protagonists are often vulnerable individuals confronting hostile environments and decisions that challenge their own convictions. Friendship, memory, disillusionment, love and frustrated expectations recur throughout films that also offer a perspective on the changes Greece has undergone in recent decades.

The festival’s Artistic Director, Orestis Andreadakis, highlights the filmmaker’s ability to leave his mark not only on Greek cinema but also on the country’s collective memory. His films, he observes, explore the human condition and the contradictions that shape our relationships with others and with ourselves.

The retrospective will reveal how these concerns have remained present since his earliest works, even as they have taken very different narrative forms.

From U-Turn to Truants: The First Awards

The retrospective begins with U-Turn (1991), his debut feature, whose protagonist, Andreas, is a car thief whose life changes when he meets a woman who draws him into a dangerous plot.

The film won the Best Newcomer Director Award at the 1991 Thessaloniki Film Festival, beginning a succession of accolades that would continue over the following years.

In A Time to Kill (1993), Grammatikos ventures into crime drama with the story of two friends who share an interest in target shooting. An offer to commit murder in exchange for money sets off a series of decisions, blackmail attempts and moral conflicts. The film received acting awards at Thessaloniki, confirming the director’s interest in characters caught between their desires and the consequences of their actions.

One of the defining moments of his career, however, came with Truants (1996), regarded as an emblematic work of contemporary Greek cinema. The story follows the occasional reunions of six friends over seven years. Their returns to their island of origin reveal how personal choices and social changes gradually weaken the bonds that once united them. Through these encounters, Grammatikos constructs a generational portrait marked by the transition from collective aspirations to a society increasingly dominated by individual solutions.

The film won the awards for Best Film, Director, Screenplay and Supporting Actor at Thessaloniki, as well as recognition from the Greek Association of Film Critics and the Audience Award.

Exclusion, Identity and the Limits of Coexistence

The retrospective continues with Night Flowers (1999), an exploration of the experiences of blind children learning to navigate a society organised primarily around sight. Through Manolis, a twelve-year-old boy, and his friends, the documentary examines other ways of perceiving and interpreting the environment, paying particular attention to the importance of touch, sound and the other senses.

In The King (2002), the director returns to the conflict between the individual and the community through a story inspired by real events. Vangelis, a thirty-five-year-old man attempting to leave his past behind, returns to a family property in the Peloponnese to begin a new life. The local inhabitants’ distrust gradually turns into hostility, eventually leading to an inevitable confrontation. The film thus raises questions about the possibility of redemption, prejudice and the limits of social acceptance.

In the Wake (2005) presents an even darker conflict. Andreas, a corrupt police officer who has shot his wife, attempts to flee the country and turns to his younger brother, a priest with whom he has had no contact for more than a decade. Over the course of a single night, the escape becomes a confrontation with their shared past and family responsibilities.

The feature-film retrospective concludes with Medea… Louder Than My Thoughts (2014), a reinterpretation of Euripides’ tragedy set in contemporary Athens. The film combines investigative elements, interviews, rehearsals and encounters with ordinary citizens to ask who Jason might be in today’s world and how the contradictions of the myth can be interpreted from a contemporary perspective.

Four Short Films Revealing His Origins

Alongside the seven features, the festival will screen four short films rarely seen on the big screen.

From Far Away (1987) presents a story of role reversal centred on the search for a murderer. Danger Zone (1988) approaches horror and mystery through a strange encounter in an isolated hotel. In Abacus (1989), an injured aviator discovers an old chessboard and begins playing against himself, gradually altering his perception of reality.

Finally, Chaos (1994) depicts a chance encounter between two men on a train, where a game of pursuit and shifting identities unfolds. These works reveal Grammatikos’s early interest in suspense, ambiguity and psychological conflict.

A Tribute That Revisits the Memory of Greek Cinema

The programme will include an open discussion with Grammatikos and several of his collaborators, including actors and screenwriters who have worked on his films.

The festival will also host a presentation of Apontes, a book by journalist and writer Theodosis Michos, published by Antipodes, which reconstructs the oral history of the making of Truants through the testimonies of those involved.

The festival’s special publication, First Shot Magazine, will likewise devote an edition to the filmmaker, featuring rare photographs, an extensive interview and original essays on his work. Screenwriter Nikos Panayotopoulos, a frequent collaborator of the director, will contribute to both the publication and the tribute.