thess international short-film festival

thess shortfilm festival
thessaloniki greece
september 24-30

The undoubted importance of short-films is now accepted more than ever before.
And not only because it was always the starting point of all great directors.
Today, most cinema personalities accept that the most creative and new cinema is found in short films. And the majority of cinema today is done with digital cameras, even cellphones, making cinema approachable to many talented persons.

Our city could not be left out of this “movement” towards short films.
The AZAdigitalCINEMAfestival, which honoring our city is renamed
THESS INTERNATIONAL SHORT FILM FESTIVAL, screened in 2007 & 2008 beautiful
shorts from all over the world, got raving reviews and comments and was honored with special screenings in the Lisbon & Porto Festival in Portugal, the International
Short & Documentary Festival of Belgrade, Patras Festival and Athens.

One of top priorities of the festival is promoting talented young Greek directors, and we are now preparing a 90min program with the best Greek shorts we showed the last two years, to be screened in festivals in England and Turkey.

Continuing in growth and quality, the 2009 festival has not only important individual entries but as well partnerships with most prestigious cinema schools and short film festivals.

MANHATTAN SHORT has honored us and will be shown for the first time in Greece. Their selection of the top 12 shorts will be shown simultaneously in over 300 cities all over the world, and spectators will vote at the same time for the best film.
The world-wide winner will be announced on the last Sunday of September.

ENCOUNTERS , SHORT FILM FESTIVAL of Bristol, U.K. will show all their excellent short films that received awards from the British Film Academy BAFTA.

FUTURE SHORTS, well-known to all cinephiles will show a special program of their best fiction and animation shorts.

The film academies of Prague, Romania and Lodz, Poland will also be present.
In addition to individual entries, last year we screened the student shorts of Polanski and Kieslowski. This year is for the shorts of Krzysztof Zanussi.

Greek director Yiannis Economidis will give a master-class and analyze the
making-of of his new film the Knifer .

The best from KIMUAK (filmoteca Vasca), BRITFILMS (u.k.), HOLLYSHORTS (usa),
OZZYWOOD (australia) and COFFEE SHORTS (u.k.) will also be shown.

The films shown in 2008 have already collected more than 350 prizes in international festivals.

Our aim is not only to have Thessaloniki fall in love with the magic of short films, but as well to promote young greek talented directors.
It will be a real cinematic fiesta !



Organized by:
yiannis & alexis zachopoulos

email: thessfest@gmail.com azacinema@gmail.com
web : www.azafestival.com
phone: +30 2310 284748 +30 6944207007