The 32nd Athens International Film Festival – Nights of Premiere will open on September 30 with Club Kid, Jordan Firstman’s Cannes-premiered directorial debut, and close on October 11 with Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine, starring John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell.
Between those two films, the festival will present a broad selection of contemporary international cinema, with a particular focus this year on auteur filmmaking and the social and political concerns shaping the present moment. The program also includes Greek films, competitions, filmmaker tributes, music documentaries and special screenings.
The festival returns after a difficult year in which it faced significant organizational challenges following the loss of funding from Greece’s European Union-backed ESPA programs. Artistic director Loukas Katsikas said the festival has not yet returned to its previous financial position, but support from the Greek Film Center, Audiovisual and Creative Industry Development Agency (EKKOMED) and a new sponsor has allowed the event to proceed.
From Cannes and Venice to Athens
Firstman’s Club Kid will launch the festival at the Athens Concert Hall, known locally as the Megaron Mousikis. The film follows a New York club party organizer whose life is thrown off course when his 10-year-old son, whose existence he did not know about, arrives.
The film will receive its Greek premiere on opening night, followed by a regular public screening on October 3.
The festival will close with Wild Horse Nine, which features Malkovich and Rockwell as CIA agents Chris and Lee. Set in 1973, the film follows a mission that takes them from Santiago, Chile, to Easter Island.
The program also brings several films from the recent international festival circuit to Athens, including Naza, the documentary by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, and Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s All of a Sudden, which was awarded at Cannes.
George Lanthimos gets a carte blanche
Greek filmmaker George Lanthimos, whose Bugonia screened at last year’s festival, will curate his own selection this year.
His choices reflect different strands of his cinematic education, ranging from Stranger by the Lake, The Firemen’s Ball and Wendy & Lucy to Wanda, Welcome to the Dollhouse, Mikey and Nicky and American Movie. The selection also includes The Bill Douglas Trilogy, the autobiographical trilogy by British filmmaker Bill Douglas.
Ten films compete internationally
The International Competition brings together 10 films from contemporary independent cinema and introduces Athens audiences to a range of filmmakers and stories.
The lineup includes Six Months in a Pink and Blue Building, Yesterday the Eye Didn’t Sleep, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, The Red Hangar and La Gradiva. Also competing are Narciso, Nina Roza, Queen at Sea, Ben’imana (Children of God) and Sad Girlz.
The Opening Nights section expands beyond the competition with a series of international and Greek premieres. Among its highlights is Rose, directed by Markus Schleinzer and starring Sandra Hüller.
Other titles include The Last Resort, Primetime, Viva Carmen!, All of a Sudden, Never After Dark, At Night, Diary of a Chambermaid, A Long Winter, Double Freedom, The Samurai and the Prisoner, The Man I Love and The Beloved.
Together, the films are intended to offer a broader picture of contemporary international cinema alongside the festival’s competition.
A long-awaited Lee Chang-dong tribute
The festival will also devote a retrospective to South Korean filmmaker Lee Chang-dong, one of the major figures in contemporary Asian cinema.
The tribute includes his new film Possible Love, which will be released on Netflix, as well as Green Fish (1997), Peppermint Candy, Oasis, Secret Sunshine, Poetry and Burning.
Music returns to the festival
After a one-year absence, the Music & Film section returns with five films focusing on different musicians and musical styles.
Among them is Pulp: What Do You Do for an Encore?, which follows the return of British band Pulp and draws on previously unreleased archival material spanning four decades.
The section also includes The Best Summer, Hip Hop Mediterraneo, Everybody Digs Bill Evans and Koln 75.
Greek cinema remains central
Greek filmmaking remains a key part of the festival, with 42 short films selected for the Greek Short Stories competition from 392 submissions.
The lineup includes films that stood out at this year’s Drama International Short Film Festival, including Wheel to Live, which won the Golden Dionysus among other awards.
From Ken Russell to Beirut
The festival’s special screenings will include Ken Russell’s The Devils, more than 50 years after its original release. The film will be screened in its complete form, without the cuts imposed by censorship, in a 4K restoration by Warner Bros.
Also screening is Do You Love Me, directed by Lana Daher, who will attend the screening. The documentary uses archival images and sounds to construct a cinematic memory of 70 years of Lebanon and Beirut.
The film has already traveled through the international festival circuit, including Venice and SXSW in Texas.
The festival will also host masterclasses as part of its Athens Film Industry Days program, with director Igor Bezinovic and cinematographer Olympia Mytilinaiou, alongside meetings for members of the Greek and international film community.
A festival rebuilding its footing
The breadth of this year’s program comes as the festival continues to operate under financial constraints. Responding to criticism over the reduced number of available season-pass categories and higher pass and ticket prices, Katsikas said the festival’s needs remain high and that available resources must be directed toward the program.
“We are no longer in the pre-Covid era or the 1990s,” Katsikas said, pointing to rising costs, particularly film rights. The festival, he said, chose not to compromise on its program and instead direct its available resources toward the films.
The decision to limit the number of season passes, he added, is intended to preserve access to individual tickets, particularly for older audiences and people less accustomed to buying tickets online.
