Across two decades of steadfast commitment to serving filmmakers from the host country and the wider region, the Thessaloniki Intl. Documentary Festival’s industry arm, Agora, which runs parallel to the fest’s 28th edition, has stayed true to its core principles, providing a platform for both emerging and established talents while offering a welcome space for voices to be heard.
“We strive to have an inclusive market, one where everyone feels safe to pitch their project and one where they can get the best possible feedback to move forward with their film and make the best possible connections,” industry head Angeliki Vergou tells Variety on the eve of this year’s event.
“We are a medium-sized industry event and one that has a special focus on the wider region,” she continues. “This makes it difficult to attract the greater players of the industry but also makes it attractive for projects that participate because the professionals who do attend are giving quality time to the connections made.”
A historical meeting point at the crossroads of East and West, Thessaloniki has for centuries been a place for peoples and cultures to come together. With a range of panel discussions, pitching sessions, masterclasses and other industry events, the Agora offers an inviting framework to dissect the most pressing challenges facing the documentary industry, with a wide-ranging program taking place against the backdrop of this handsome seaside city from March 8 – 12.
The agenda reflects Vergou’s concerns about “the state of documentary filmmaking as a whole and the difficulties in funding and broadcasting them,” she says, as evidenced by some of the highlights of this year’s event. Among them will be the launch of a Think Tank, in partnership with the European Film Academy (EFA), that will bring together leading European documentary professionals focused on the future of documentary representation within the EFA. The launch coincides with plans to introduce a documentary chapter in the Academy next year, when Athens will also play host to the European Film Academy Awards, an event organized by the Hellenic Film and Audiovisual Center – Creative Greece (EKKOMED).
“This closed-door Think Tank brings together a carefully selected group of European documentary professionals to shape the chapter’s founding vision, priorities and an initial framework and marks a significant milestone in recognizing documentary cinema’s vital contribution to European film culture,” Vergou says. Its aim is to foster “stronger connections between documentary and fiction filmmaking communities across the continent.”
Meanwhile, the Agora will present the findings of Doc Together, an initiative launched at last year’s Thessaloniki fest in partnership with DOK Leipzig to “establish a long-term, cross-sector coalition that provides sustained support for filmmakers affected by censorship, displacement or crisis,” says Vergou. That will be complemented by a talk from Intl. Documentary Association executive director Dominic Willsdon, highlighting that organization’s new emergency assistance program for filmmakers at risk.
Thessaloniki industry head Angeliki Vergou
Courtesy of Thessaloniki International Film Festival
Another new wrinkle this year will be the launch of Agora Cross-Border, an initiative to foster greater collaboration between Greece and its international partners. The first edition will be held in partnership with the Basque Audiovisual Office, which will introduce the region to an industry audience in Thessaloniki “showcasing the Basque country and what it has to offer,” says Vergou.
An annual Agora highlight, meanwhile, is the presentation of upcoming works during the Thessaloniki Pitching Forum and Docs in Progress, which include projects from Southeastern Europe, as well as the wider Mediterranean and Black Sea regions. In curating this year’s selection, says Vergou, the organizers were looking to strike a balance “between marketable documentaries and character-driven stories…prioritiz[ing] work that feels urgent and reflects shared living experiences.”
Fourteen documentary projects in development from 17 countries will take part in this year’s Pitching Forum. Highlights include “Ashes,” the directorial debut of Syrian journalist and filmmaker Daham Alasaad, from the producers of Academy Award winner “No Other Land”; “The Beautiful and the Damned,” the latest from “A Dog Called Money” filmmaker Seamus Murphy; and “My Father Killed Bourguiba,” by Tunisian filmmaker Fatma Riahi and the producers of Academy Award nominee “The Voice of Hind Rajab.”
Over at Docs in Progress, which features 10 documentary films in post-production, highlights include “Immortal Flowers” (pictured), from Tabor Production, the Ukrainian collective behind Cannes Directors’ Fortnight selection “Militantropos,” and “Landwards,” from Jordan’s Rama Ayasra, which was awarded at the Thessaloniki Pitching Forum 2022. Recent Agora alumni include Greek filmmaker Elina Psykou’s “Stray Bodies,” a Thessaloniki and CPH:DOX premiere in 2024, and “Blueberry Dreams,” by Georgia’s Elene Mikaberidze, which also premiered in Copenhagen that year.
With this year’s event unfolding amid ongoing industry uncertainty and broader economic and geopolitical upheaval, “we are coming together during difficult times, it is true,” says Vergou. “And it seems to me that every year it is worse and worse, and every year we keep on with the same resilience and hope towards a brighter future.
“In Agora we want to offer a space where we gather to document, to preserve, to share, to support one another. Every project pitched, every partnership forged, every conversation held is an investment in a future where authentic human experience endures,” she continues. “Knowledge grows through sharing. If we don’t talk about our challenges, our strategies, our failures and successes, we cannot gather the collective wisdom we need to navigate this shifting landscape.”
The Thessaloniki Intl. Documentary Festival takes place March 5 – 15.
