WELCOME TO THE 45th THESSALONIKI INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

Ιt's that time of year again, and the Thessaloniki International Film Festival is looking forward to meeting, conversing, and communicating with all the dynamic and fruitful expressions of new cinema from all over the world; always adapting to new demands, to new challenges, paving new ways, reinforcing and encouraging new voices. The habits of modern-day cinephiles have change; their haunts have spread to other places, beyond the traditional ones, such as cinematheques or art houses. The worldwide boom of the DVD, the new forms of easy access -through satellites- to the library of cinema's glorious history, have produced a new wave, a new interaction with cinema, as well as newly-appeared habits in the way it is consumed - especially by the younger generations who are, after all, its privileged viewers. Festivals also fall under this new trend; they are more accessible, more democratic, more celebratory, more open and more creative.

A Festival for new filmmakers, such as that of Thessaloniki, has already ascertained these new prospects. Because precisely it did not share the pessimistic climate of previous years, it has been able, by forming a steady, massive, critical and demanding audience which appears to follow it in its difficult choices, to track renewed and revised, unpredictable and pioneering expressions that illuminate and highlight the diversity of contemporary cinema.

This year, the common thread running through the selections of the international competition section is the human landscape. These are films that are anthropocentric but at the same time decentralized in relation to imposed standards; human portraits that underscore the fragmentation and dissolution of modern societies; portraits of people standing up against the war, the economic crisis, religious fanaticism; people who survive, are assimilated, or are undone. Greek Cinema, whose entire production for 2004 will be screened at the Festival, will be involved in a continuous and fruitful dialogue with world cinema, making the most of this rare opportunity once again. Our tributes offer unique opportunities to get to know singular artists of our time. From the great Iranian film director Abbas Kiarostami, to the rarely seen Victor Erice and the prolific Kiyoshi Kurosawa, the new master of fantastic cinema, and from the best of the new Argentine Cinema to the Balkan Survey which this year celebrates its 10th anniversary. The unique Isabelle Huppert, a leading actress in European Cinema, will be honouring this year's Festival with her presence in an event which will include the screening of two of her most recent, major films. There will also be comprehensive tributes to two patriarchal and solitary figures of Greek Cinema: Costas Sfikas, who has always persisted down a personal, experimental, forward-looking road, and Alexis Damianos, the poet of the harsh and real human landscape. Moreover, it is with great joy that we will be hosting Katerina Thomadaki and Maria Klonaris, the Greek visual arts filmmakers who live and work in Paris. The Festival will also be honouring the distinguished playwright Iakovos Kambanellis, and the film director Manos Zaharias, who spent many years away from Greece. And, like every year, Dimitri Eipides has selected for the New Horizons programme films representative of the problematics developing in cinema all over the world.

The 45th Thessaloniki International Film Festival, at its most mature and creative phase, continues to aspire to be a bridge, a meeting point with the radical, alternative, strange and restless cinematic trends, and to register images, aspects and ideas of the new cinema.

Michel Demopoulos
Director of the Festival