Our trip to North Evia last year for the Evia Film Project of the Thessaloniki Film Festival stirred up mixed emotions. On the one hand, we felt sadness and anger at the obvious and immense ecological destruction caused by the massive 2021 wildfires in the area. On the other, we felt hope and some pride as a cinematic event took the initiative to keep our attention on Evia, Greece’s second-biggest island, urging us not to forget and encouraging us to take action to help heal the wounds. It is equally important that this initiative continues.
As announced on Tuesday, the festival will return to Aidipsos, Limni and Agia Anna from June 20 to 24 with a new round of events, which will, of course, include film screenings at the heart of it all.
The focus of the program is primarily environmental, featuring classic and contemporary films, both fiction and documentary, that aim to raise awareness and prompt action, while also celebrating the grandeur of nature and highlighting the importance of respecting the environment that humans often self-destructively threaten.
The film screenings will take place at the seaside village of Limni at the Elymnion open-air cinema, and the coastal town of Aidipsos at the recently renovated Cinema Apollo.
In addition to the film screenings, the program of events includes many other interesting activities, such as student workshops and music evenings, with more details to be announced soon. One of the highlights will be a workshop on location management. Orestis Andreadakis, the festival’s artistic director, shares: “We return to North Evia with love, aiming with this particular tour to showcase the unique beauties of the area once again after the devastating fires of 2021.
We hope that the location managers we will invite from all over the world will discover this beautiful area and choose it as a filming location for international and Greek productions. We are planning an extensive tour for film professionals, both at sea and inland, which will conclude with a masterclass where the location manager and line producer of Ruben Ostlund’s film ‘Triangle of Sadness’ will explain how they discovered Hiliadou Beach and integrated it into the film, winning the award for Best European Film Location of 2022 by the European Film Commission Network (EUFCN).”
The educational aspect of the event is further emphasized by a collaboration with The Circle Women Doc Accelerator, a training program for female-identifying documentary filmmakers, producers and directors. Selected participants from all over the world will come to Evia this year to receive guidance from experts on their projects, and open masterclasses will also be held as part of the same program.
This article was previously published at ekathimerini.com.
