Away from the conventionality of commercial large-scale productions, independent filmmakers are becoming more and more popular with an ever-increasing audience, thus assuring themselves wider distribution. From 1992 to the present, new directors who were still unknown in Greece, like Egoyan, Kiarostami, Hartley, Bodrov, Haneke and Morris, among others, won over Greek audiences through the programs of "New Horizons". Today, the success of these films is proof that modern-day filmgoers are showing a mounting preference for a cinematic art that deals with controversial and vital issues.

The program of "New Horizons" during this 40th International Thessaloniki Film Festival will be presenting films that have been acclaimed at the world's most prestigious film festivals, such as L'Humanite by Bruno Dumont and Abbas Kiarostami's latest film The Wind Will Carry Us (Cannes Film Festival), 17 Years by Zang Yuang (Venice Film Festival) and The Color of Heaven by Majid Majidi (Montreal Film Festival). This year's selection includes the controversial new film by Atom Egoyan Felicia's Journey, but also important films by new directors making their debut appearance. The War Zone, a film directed by the well-known English actor Tim Roth, handles an especially sensitive topic with impressive maturity, while human relations in general seem to be a popular theme with many new films. Besides L'Humanite, the tribute to New French Cinema includes Small-time Thief by Erick Zonka (the adventures of a young man who slips into a life of crime), as well as 1999 Madeleine, the story of a lonely woman and her inability to love and be loved. As for the American Independent Cinema, it forms one of the most interesting parts of the program. Among them, David Rilker's LaThe Ciudad, consisting of four vignettes about the experiences of Latin American refugees in the city of New York, and Amos Kollek's Fiona, the last part of his trilogy about women on the streets of New York. Here, the director has used actors, but also actual prostitutes. German Cinema, which has been undergoing a renaissance during the last few years, is represented by three important films: Nightfall is the third film by Fred Kelemen; in Paths into the Night, Andreas Kleinert tells an original tale with sensitivity and sensuality; lastly, Rosa von Praunheim, one of the most militant homosexual filmmakers, presents the life-story of a controversial figure of the thirties.

Our regular 3X3 section this year will be focusing on three women filmmakers: Hungary's Ildik? Enyedi; Canadian Lea Pool; and Claire Denis from France. Their remarkable work, so far unknown in Greece, is characterized by the originality of their themes and the individuality of their expression. The tribute to the unique American director Allison Anders completes this year's panorama.

At the close of the 20th century, new cinema marks the evolution of an art that remains steadily first with audiences the world over; an art that has the power to record the multifariousness of the human experience and express the cultural developments of our times.