March 2025
The Thessaloniki International Documentary Film Festival (6-16/3/2025), one of the leading
documentary festivals in the world, reveals this year’s concept, through the key visual signed
by the painter Dimitris Anastasiou, a cinematic journey from the Greek countryside of the
‘60s, to an imaginary –utopian or dystopian – futuristic urban space.
In addition to Competition screenings of Greek and international remarkable documentaries,
visitors will have the chance to discover 19 rare ethnographic, political, social, industrial,
ecological documentaries of renowned Greek filmmakers that map the life and spirit of the
Greek countryside, during the framework of the grand tribute “Geography of the Gaze: Off-
Plan Greece (1950-2000).
At the same time, the festival explores the new reality of Artificial Intelligence within the
framework of the tribute “AI, an Inevitable Intelligence” which colors the opening night of the
festival. The opening film About a Hero (2024) by Piotr Winiewicz, is an adaptation of a script
written by an AI trained on Werner Herzog’s work, inspired by Herzog’s statement that “a
computer will not make a film as good as mine in 4,500 years.”
Moreover, the opening ceremony’s hosts will be the children from the Greek National
Robotics Team, who recently won eight medals in the World Robot Olympiad held in South
Korea.
