The 13th edition of the Athens Avant-garde Film Festival takes place in a time of polycrisis - climate change, depletion of natural resources, growing inequality, savage wars and surveillance capitalism – in which the role of cinema and the production of narratives in general is becoming extremely crucial. Can we still look for auteurs who will present counter-narratives to TINA, against violence on women, ethnic minorities, LGBTI people, patients with terminal illnesses and generally in defence of human rights? Is there hope that we can that we can escape the linear representation of historical time and prioritize narratives that fight for the vindication of the repressed past?
The International Competition presents ten films, most of which have been screened at major international festivals and which address the repercussions of polycrisis, adopting different tropes of cinematic narrative, from ethnographic to poetic, to narrate new forms of political struggle, aspects of identity politics, archives of collective memories and the return of the repressed. In the new competition section “Reframing Images”, co-organized with ARTWORKS, twenty-six films (fiction, documentaries, experimental films) are screened, which re-examine the relationship between aesthetics and politics from a new perspective.
The festival presents a tribute to Antoinetta Angelidi, who was a pioneer of feminist experimental cinema in Greece. Her gaze is original and personal and therefore radically political. The guest of the festival, Radu Jude, will present his older films and the Greek premiere of his last two films. Jude, who was one of the pioneers of Romanian New Wave, has since developed his own idiom that combines satire with a melancholic look at society.
The award-winning film by acclaimed Portuguese director Miguel Gomes, Grand Tour, will be the opening film of the festival, and Crista Alfaiate, along with director of photography Rui Poças will be at the opening ceremony. The short tribute to Gomes includes two more films that Rui Poças will present. In the programme, curated by Nicole Brenez and Paul Grivas, about Jean-Luc Godard, the films showcased are the drafts or visual scripts of his feature films. In Scenarios we can even see the last shot of the great auteur himself before his appointment with death.
In Special Screenings, Leo Carax's It's Not Me will be the closing film of the festival, while Lav Diaz's Phantosmia will also be screened. Our very good friend of the festival Céline Ruivo will be with us to present the documentary, Cinégraphies, the Women of the Storm about women's American experimental cinema. Ehsan Khoshbakht, with Celluloid Underground, recites stories of cinephilia from Tehran, while independent filmaker and visual artist Richard Ledes will present his film Adieu Lacan in a Greek premiere.
In Restored and Beautiful, Pantelis Voulgaris' Happy Day is presented, restored and digitized by the new laboratory of the Greek Film Archive. My Grandmother, by Kote Mikaberidze, a dadaist satire of Soviet bureaucracy, is screened with original live music by Lolek. The Return to Reason, by Man Ray, is shown in a newly restored version with music by Jim Jarmusch and Carter Logan. The emblematic Brazilian Cinema Nuovo film Black God, White Devil, by Glauber Rocha, is also screened.
I would like to thank the Minister of Culture Dr. Lina Mendoni and the Regional Governor of Attica Mr. Nikos Chardalias. Also, the executives of the NSRF Managing Authority, ARTWORKS and Stavros Niarchos Foundation, the Hellenic Film and Audiovisula Center - Creative Greece, the representatives of the embassies and institutions, as well as the members of the jury. Finally, the Board of Directors and my colleagues at the Greek Film Archive, as well as the NSRF employees and the volunteers.
Maria Komninos
Artistic Director of the 13th Athens Avant-Garde Film Festival
