From the "On The Scene" Archives:

by Amy Goodman

(indieWIRE/ 03.13.02) -- As I take my seat in the center of the grand Olympian Theater in Thessaloniki, a small crowd of paparazzi swarms towards the front row. Cameras flash and pan across the stage, where speakers are beginning ceremonious welcome speeches entirely in Greek. Along with an auditorium full of chic-ly dressed, amply perfumed artsy types, I am checking everyone out, waiting for the lights to dim. Thus begins the fourth annual Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, also called "Images of the 21st Century," which ran March 4-10. Thessaloniki is one of the most fun, best-run documentary fests in the world, even though its films highlighted the fact that we are living in one of the most dangerous times in world history.

Festival founder and director Dimitri Eipides programmed some 91 films for this year's Festival, laudably diverse in subject matter, style, and country of origin. The Festival also included a five-day Pitching Forum and Workshop, sponsored by the European Documentary Network, which let 20 emerging filmmakers pitch their ideas to a panel of European programmers, buyers, and producers. Also ongoing during the Festival was the annual International Doc Market, which provided a slate of 257 films to prospective buyers from 23 countries.

Festival attendance was up this year, reaching somewhere between 15-20,000 people -- mostly from Thessaloniki's general population -- and the consensus on the scene was that this Festival has an important future. Festival maven Peter Wintonick returned to Thessaloniki this year with Katerina Cizek and their film "Seeing Is Believing," about the impact of handicams on journalism and society at large. "After Amsterdam," Wintonick said, "I don't know of another documentary festival that draws as many people as this one. That's why we're here."

There is probably no better place in Greece than Thessaloniki for a documentary film festival. This coastal city is the country's second largest, full of urban sophisticates who actually pay to see documentaries. It's also a university town, which means that its landscape is drizzled with 80,000 young, cosmopolitan students, all smoking furiously, wielding cell phones, and voraciously consuming films day and night.

The Festival is well-organized; it boasts a large, friendly staff, classy-looking schedules and catalogues, and two good-sized theaters in the Olympian Theater building. Home base for the Festival, the Olympian faces the city's majestic Aristotle Square, a bustling piazza that stretches to the Aegan Sea. One of the reasons why the Festival is so well put together is that it is an offshoot of the much larger, 42-year-old Thessaloniki International Film Festival, which takes place each November. The staff, facilities and infrastructure (and funding sources) are the same for both events.

While Thessaloniki nightlife throbbed outside, festival films screening in the Olympian theaters offered a sobering look at the state of the world. A special program of 12 films, called "Focus On: Children of a Harsh Reality," became the dominant focus of this year's Festival. To accompany these films about the plight of children around the world, Festival officials planned a day-long international conference on the subject of children's human rights, and a telethon to benefit Afghani children in an Iranian refugee camp. This telethon was directly inspired by Iranian filmmaker Moshem Makhmalbaf's candid, provocative documentary, "Afghan Alphabet," for which he received an Honorary Award. And for the second time in four years, the Festival included a videoconference with Noam Chomsky, who spoke to the Thessaloniki audience from his office in Boston, with his usual acute powers of observation and metaphor, about media coverage of the current war.

The diverse program has famed curator Eipides's flavor and integrity. Opening night film, "The Lovers of San Fernando" by Swedish director Peter Torbiornsson, follows more than 20 years of the love affair of a man and woman living in the Nicaraguan mountains. Although the film is edited strangely ‚ neither chronologically nor with any discernable logic ‚ the time Torbiornsson spent with these people and the inevitably close relationships he developed with them yielded some of the most powerful vÈritÈ scenes I've seen.

Eipides programmed several films that premiered at Sundance this year, including Liz Garbus's powerful film, "The Execution of Wanda Jean," "The Cockettes" (Bill Weber & David Weissman), "Sister Helen" (Rob Fruchtman & Rebecca Cammisa), Lourdes Portillo's "Missing Young Woman," and Sundance's Grand Prize winner, "Daughter From Danang," by Gail Dolgin and Vicente Franco. Susan Froemke's vérité tour de force, Academy Award nominee "Lalee's Kin: The Legacy of Cotton," and Jehane Noiujaim and Chris Hegedus's "Startup.com," both Sundance 2001 veterans, were also quite popular here.

"Promises," the acclaimed Justine Shapiro and B.Z. Goldberg documentary about Palestinian and Israeli children, was the other Oscar-nominated film on the Thessaloniki roster. It was not, however, the only film at the Festival about the effect of the Israel-Palestine conflict on children. Aleyet Dekel's "Sumud" consists of interviews conducted over 13 years with four Palestinian kids who live in the Deheisha refugee camp near Bethlehem.

Out of the 91 films, a few truly stood out. "Missing Young Woman," directed by Lourdes Portillo, is a masterfully crafted film about several hundred young women who have disappeared from the Mexican border town of Juarez over the past 10 years, and were later found brutally raped and murdered. Portillo approaches her harrowing story with incredible courage and determination, hoping to incite Mexican and world leaders to end this terrible epidemic. This is a film about human rights, but it is also a first-class unsolved mystery that will join the documentary canon alongside "The Thin Blue Line."

Another unsolved mystery was the focus of German director Christian Bauer's "Missing Allen," about his Chicago-based friend and cameraman, Allen Ross, with whom he made seven films before Ross disappeared without a trace. Bauer vividly recreates Chicago's small but lively independent film scene in the '70s, in which Ross played a large part, and then hits the road like a detective to track Ross' final days and bizarre, probable cause of death.

Of the many films about Afghanistan in Thessaloniki this year, Makmalbaf's "Afghan Alphabet" was surely the most compelling. Makhmalbaf, whose film "Kandahar" was released to acclaim earlier this year, took his digital camera into a refugee camp for Afghanis in Iran, overflowing with children who cannot go to school. Makhmalbaf plays with the kids from behind his lens and asks them questions, like "What is God?" in a firm, fatherly way that provokes fascinating answers.

"Nisha" is a deeply effecting and poetic film that will surely rise to the top of the heap of documentaries made about AIDS. Director Duco Tellegen addresses the problems of drug availability and the crushing effects of shame inspired by the disease, through the story of an 11-year-old Indian girl. "Nisha" was one of the films in the "Focus On: Children of a Harsh Reality" program, which also included Kim Longinotto and Ziba Mir-Hosseini's "Runaway," about alienated runaway Iranian girls, Hungarian director Ferenc Moldovanyi's "Children, Kosovo 2000," American Karen Kramer's "Children of Shadows," about destitute Haitian kids forced into indentured slavery, and the Festival's Audience Award winner, "Warrior of Light," one of four films in the Festival's retrospective of German filmmaker Monika Treut.

"Daughter from Danang" definitely deserved its Sundance award and added significantly to the Thessaloniki lineup, as well. Five years ago at a party, Gail Dolgin found out from a Vietnamese journalist friend that a heart-wrenching reunion was about to take place between a poor, Vietnamese woman and her daughter, Hiep, who was separated from her mother and brought to America 22 years ago at the age of 7. Beautifully shot and sensitively produced, the film is a thickly layered story that unfolds in perfect rhythm and exposes the effect of cultural difference on love.

"Daddy and Papa," by American director Johnny Symons, also deserves mention. One of many recent films about the trials of gays and lesbians who want to become parents, this film approaches the subject personally (Symons and his partner adopt a child during the film), with good humor and a light, but distinctly political touch.

The Festival paid tributes to three filmmakers: Bruce Weber, Werner Herzog, and Monika Treut (sadly, only Treut was able to attend). Weber's films featured at the Festival included his 1988 Academy Award nominee, "Let's Get Lost" about Chet Baker, and his most recent "Chop Suey," a sexy portrait of objects of desire, including teenage wrestling star Peter Johnson, cabaret star Frances Faye, Diana Vreeland, and Weber's own photographs. Herzog was represented by 1970 masterpieces "Fata Morgana," "The Land of Silence and Darkness," and "My Best Fiend: Klaus Kinski," with that entrancing final shot of the infamous Kinski playing with a butterfly.

Previous critics have griped about the Festival's non-enforcement of a cell phone policy, and this year was no different: at least four cell phones rang in every screening I attended, which was extremely unnerving. And there is still no room worked into the schedule for Q&As, one of the best parts about seeing film at festivals.

As much as the Greek people are passionate and fun-loving and as much as their joyfulness was evident at this year's Festival, there was a distinct feeling at this international gathering that we are in the midst of a critical and frightening time in history. The "Images of the 21st Century" were mostly images of war and tragedy. Hopefully, in years to come, as the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival continues to thrive, we will be able to watch powerful documents of a better reality.