In its third day, the 42nd Thessaloniki International Film Festival continues to unveil its international competition, new Greek productions and many "imports". Yesterday the timely "Kandahar" played to a full house - but don't worry, if you couldn't get a seat, the film plays again on Monday at 5.30pm.

Working 24 Seven
An African theme runs through today's competition films, although they are from France and Italy, respectively. In "As a Man" (3.45pm) Senegalese-French director Alain Gomis looks at the struggle of a Senegalese student in Paris who is at an important crossroads: will he stay in Paris illegally, with his girlfriend or return to a prearranged Senegalese life. Later Italian fisherman violate Tunisian waters in "Sailing Home" (8pm). The film shows the fisherman getting into a shooting stand-off with the Northern African country's police. When they return home, Naples looks different. Judging from yesterday's packed screenings, it would be wise to get international competition tickets early.

Making Monday's Headlines
Today the Minister of Culture, Evangelos Venizelos, is expected to hold a press conference at 1.30pm (Warehouse D).

A Day for Families
Disney film "Atlantis: The Lost Empire" caters to younger filmgoers. In it a group of explorers look for the lost city. This animated film by Californians Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise plays tomorrow, in a special children's screening, at 11.45am. The story is about a naive cartographer and language expert named Milo who carries on the Atlantis hunt begun by his grandfather. New evidence guides him and a group of adventurers to explore the sea floor.

Personal Reflections
Faye Dunaway addressed a full house at yesterday's press conference. She spoke about the old star system, acquiring wisdom, friendship with Tennessee Williams, the misunderstood cinema of Kusturica, Elia Kazan's massive influence on US cinema, and a life of solitude, to name just a few topics. "It's not natural to walk into a room and be stared at," Dunaway pointed out, in discussing her often "unnatural" profession. In her own life, she had to become accustomed to this strange environment. "I wish I'd been smarter, earlier, but it takes you time to grow," she recalled, focusing on the positive tradeoff of fame and fortune - the freedom to do projects one wants. Her whole career - from early theater with Kazan to new films, have been a kind of "master class" the star pointed out. Her new film "Yellow Bird" was born, glamorously enough, while riding around in limousines and laughing with Tennessee Williams. Williams left her with a story he cooked up - the only one featuring a heroine who wasn't tragic.

Sins of the State
When Turkish troops in the mid 90s killed Kurd rebels in the distant mountains, newspapers would publish images of triumphant soldiers posing over the corpses. These images inspired international competition film "The Photograph". As the film premiered yesterday, producer Savas Boyraz explained that filming came first, then the money. The Kurdish team started filming with only a hundred - borrowed - dollars. Maybe luck, or conflicting internal opinions, allowed the script, and then the finished film, to slip by the state body that approves or censors films. The film opened, with success, in cinemas in four Turkish cities on November 2. Boyraz, accompanied by much of the small cast and crew, noted that since the PKK's cease fire, it is easier to make films dealing with Kurdish issues. For "The Photograph" team filmmaking is not a hobby, but a life and a way to "contribute to a positive atmosphere".

A Candle for Cyprus
Athena Xenidou's "Unwitnessed Memories" also deals with disputed regions on Turkey's borders, from a documentary point of view. It looks at a handful of Greek-Cypriots, in their late teens and early twenties, who inherited a split country and the surrealism of that situation. Though the director's voice-over makes it clear who the heroes and the aggressors are, she offers genuine insight, not fanaticism, concerning the consequences of the forced relocation of 200,000 Greek-Cypriots and the loss of 1,619 missing people. It plays again today at 5.30pm.

The Virgin's Holiday
After Constantinos Yiannaris' "From the Edge of the City" wowed the international competition a few years back, he has returned with "One Day in August" (10.30pm). The film, set on the Virgin Mary holiday, has some of the same cast members of the previous film, but is quite different. In the film a family with a sick girl, and two wildly different childless couples, abandon their small apartment block for the countryside. Their troubled vacations are linked by a robber, who pokes around in their homes. Other local productions include Dimitris Yiatzouzakis' media spoof "Full Pink Ahead" (1pm), Stavros Vidalis' "Shadow-Play" (3pm), Christos Voupouras' "The Dance of the Horses" (5.30pm with "Unwitnessed Memories"), Yiorgos Agathonikiadis' Civil War recollection "Returning in Autumn" (8pm), Yannis Fagras' coming-of-age story "Still Looking for Morphine" (5.30pm) and George Keramidiotis' "Land and People" (1.45pm).

On the Seventh Day, There Was Art
At last year's festival director Jerzy Skolimowski spoke of his enthusiasm for great big canvases. This year he demonstrates what he means with a painting exhibition that has traveled from Venice to Thessaloniki. The Thessaloniki International Film Festival and the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art launch his exhibit today at 12.30pm at the museum.

Haneke Is No Choir Boy
Tonight the New Horizons section of the festival screens Austrian director Michael Haneke's story of seduction "The Piano Teacher" at 8.30pm. In the director's latest work (which will be released in Greece soon) a strict piano teacher at the Vienna Conservatory finds herself the object of affection of a young student. Will his quest end her self-mutilating repression?

Spend Domingo in Argentina
The festival's look at Argentine cinema continues with two Buenos Aires stories: "Bolivia" (a cook from Bolivia avoids alienation, 1.15pm) and "Only for Today" (a look at a group of young people, 6pm). "Freedom" travels outside of the city, to tell the grueling, but unfettered day-in-the-life of a lumberjack (11.15pm).

Quote/unquote:
"Our main intention is to reach the humanity which is lost within ourselves." Savas Boyraz, producer, "The Photograph"

Angelike Contis
First shot, #95, 11/11/2000