So that's a real movie star!
It was a beautiful day yesterday for greeting Catherine Deneuve. The setting was the front entrance to the bar-restaurant Shark, on the edge of town, by the water. The time was a little after two, with the sun streaming down on about thirty journalists waiting outside, most in artsy black. A few bodyguard types were around, as were television cameras. However sophisticated the spectator, a "wow" was inevitably breathed, as the actress's vehicle arrived, and she (wearing tinted shades, of course) stepped out of the car and the cameras swooped in on her. Peeking around the elbows of cameramen, a few words, a French-English mix, could be heard coming from the actress's direction. She explained her new film ("Le Vent de la Nuit", by director Philippe Garrel, which premiered last night) was sad in tone, a love story. Inside, the ample Shark was packed, so that making ones way across the floor for a glass of wine was quite a feat. Again, the short ones had to hop or be hoisted up for a glimpse of the actress at a central table full of notables. Deneuve will be giving a press conference today at 12:30 in the afternoon.

Did you hear the one about…?
Two of Greek audience's favourite comedic directors, Olga Malea and Vassilis Vafeas, chatted with Spanish director Ventura Pons about the merits of comedies and the difficulties of producing films in a small market. Malea, whose two feature films have been box office hits, pointed out that only light-hearted films can pave the way for other cinema to flourish in small countries, such as Greece, where the public has been jaded by serious works and seduced by Hollywood. Director Pons confessed he plans on making a comedy next, after a string of dramas, because he is more interested in connecting with his public than with film critics. While the Spanish director (who makes all his films in Catalan) agreed with Greece's Vafeas that one's native language is "a tool," he noted that people "don't go to the cinema because of the language. They go because a film is good and they think it will be interesting." With regards to the merits of film festivals, while Olga Malea did not accept Vafea's half-joking reference to festivals as a kind of spiritual meeting of cinematic believers… she did agree that it was thrilling how festivals were able to form amazing connections across national borders. Pons saw the more practical side of festivals, like distribution agreements. This year's Thessaloniki festival is the 38th his new film "Amic Amat" is attending.

I remember when…
Portugal's Alberto Seixas Santos and Fernando Lopes shared their memories on the development of their national cinema yesterday. Director Lopes painted a picture of a stimulating era in the mid-to-late 1960s, when a group of young directors joined forces to start shaping a Portuguese cinema that varied from the exhausted commercial norms. Because cinema was strictly censored for many years in Portugal, it wasn't just a personal education that directors such as Seixas Santos and Lopes sought, when they spent time abroad, seeing all of the major film classics, but a new means of communication. Lopes notes that his 1972 "A Bee in the Rain" was a clear metaphor for life in Portugal in a certain era. Cinema clubs were not just a leisure activity in the country in the 1960s and early 1970s, but "a cultural and political movement," according to the director. Both directors pointed to Manoel de Oliveira as an inspiration and point of reference in their effort to shape a new cinema. "I wasn't sure before seeing the Thessaloniki Film Festival's programme," noted director Lopes, "if there was such thing as a Portuguese cinema. But after seeing the films listed together, I realised there is a subterranean connection between all the films." Both Seixas Santos and Lopes insisted on the need to offer an alternative to strictly commercial cinema, and to other audio visual expressions. Lopes warned: "TV exists to make us forget."

Kids these days.
One of the directors whose films is competing in the festival's international competition was only born in 1974. His name is Justin Kerrigan and he's created the drug-happy world of "Human Traffic," screening tonight for the first time in Thessaloniki at 8:30pm. Kerrigan's film features a group of friends with little visible future to speak of, but one bouncy weekend to enjoy. Deep messages? Satisfying moral closure? It's probably not a good idea to strain yourself looking.

Don't try this at home.
Two of the more anticipated of the New Horizon's programme films showing today are Rosa Von Praunheim's "The Einstein of Sex," and Kevin Dinovis' "Surrender Dorothy." Von Praunheim's film is about Berlin sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935). "Surrender Dorothy" is an American film about a shy busboy who becomes the dominator in a relationship with a heroine addict on the run. Yesterday, audiences had a look at the beautifully shot, but deep-down haunting of actor Tim Roth's directing debut, the incest-themed "The War Zone."

Take a look at exhibit A.
This afternoon, art lovers should take a little time out to visit the Provlita's Apothiki A for the opening of the exhibitions of artist Tasos Zografos and photographer Penelope Massouris (at 3pm and 3:30pm respectively). Zografos' work is made up of gorgeously coloured and shaped paintings, showing mostly heavenly (but also a few war-inspired nightmarish) images of Greekness. Mr. Zografos, who was setting up the exhibit of images of stylized mermaids and neoclassical buildings at the beginning of the festival, pointed out that while his work was inspired by things like buildings in Pireaus or events in Greek history, his art is not located anywhere in particular, but rather in his imagination. "I was painting images of women," he noted, "before I knew exactly what a woman was. It was more my ideal of what I wanted her to be." Photographer Penelope Massouris brings an exhibit made up of fifty images of Greek actors who have left their mark on the silver screen.

I've never seen such a thing.
The new waterfront location of the Thessaloniki Film Festival gets kudos from everyone we've spoken to. Industrial chic. Cool evening lighting. Comfortable press screening rooms and spaces.

Quote/Unquote:
"I'm sure we'll meet in some cinema, in the port, or at the Olympion, and all of our hearts will be beating at 24 frames per second." -Thessaloniki mayor Vassilis Papageorgopoulos, at the festival's opening ceremony on Friday.

Angelike Contis
First shot, #57, 14/11/1999