The 26th Thessaloniki Film Festival kicked off with the film “They Shot the Piano Players” by Fernando Trueba, who also received the honorary Golden Alexander for his lifetime contribution to cinema.
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00:00 Thessaloniki, the second largest city in Greece, is hosting the 26th edition of International Documentary Festival.
00:07 This year's main tribute, titled "Citizen Queer", contained a large number of LGBTQI+ documentaries.
00:14 The 26th Thessaloniki Film Festival kicked off with a film.
00:18 They shot "The Piano Players" by Fernando Treva, who also received the honorary Golden Alexander for his lifetime contribution to cinema.
00:29 The Thessaloniki Documentary Festival has become one of the most important documentaries festivals in Europe.
00:35 That's why this year we had 120 premieres, which shows the trust that the directors, producers and sales agents have in our festival.
00:44 They know that they will come here and their film will find an amazing audience.
00:48 Whoever wins the Golden Alexander will automatically be selected for the Oscar documentary award, but also because he will see the professional community of the world.
01:01 And his film will definitely have a good course, if it starts at the Thessaloniki Film Festival.
01:07 One of the documentaries presented was "My Stolen Planet" by Farhana Sharifi, in which she features archive footage showing life in Iran before the 1979 revolution.
01:17 The director remains in Germany because she can no longer return to Iran.
01:22 The producer of the film explains to ERA News that the death of Maksa Amini affected the director.
01:28 It's a very personal film. She filmed everything that was around her, because as a woman you don't have the right to go out on the streets and film whatever you want.
01:39 You don't need to film what you have around you. So it was her private life, her friends and her family.
01:48 But then eventually, with everything that happens after Maksa Amini's death, made her change the structure and then it became a diary of the 45 years of oppression of women's rights in Iran.
02:05 Thessaloniki Documentary Festival ends on Sunday, March 17.
02:10 The Thessaloniki Documentary Festival hosts the award ceremony of the world's best documentaries every year.
02:16 This year, the organization's 11 days, 250 documentaries are presented, which have to do with particularly critical, urgent issues that concern the whole planet.
02:25 More than 200 directors, Greeks and foreigners, give appointments to this multitudinous festival.
02:30 Giorgos Mitropoulos from Thessaloniki for Euronews.
02:33 News.