The Thessaloniki Intl. Documentary Festival’s industry arm, Agora, which runs parallel to the fest’s 27th edition from March 7 – 15, returns with a renewed sense of purpose for filmmakers devoted to a medium that feels more vital than ever.
Taking place at a time when the very notion of truth is under threat, the event will gather documentary filmmakers, commissioners, funding bodies and other industry representatives to reckon not only with the existential crises facing the doc community, but the practical concerns for filmmakers faced with ongoing financing and distribution challenges.
In such turbulent times, industry events like Agora are all the more essential to the health of the documentary ecosystem, according to Thessaloniki industry head Angeliki Vergou.
“Markets are the core of the audiovisual industry. People attend them because they want to meet each other, they want to exchange [ideas],” Vergou tells Variety. “This is the main purpose why we exist: so we can bring good projects together with good professionals, in order to create and promote good content.”
Amid belt-tightening at public and private broadcasters, corporate retrenchment at major streaming platforms and shifting audience habits, documentary filmmakers must walk a tightrope to bring that content to the screen. Yet the Agora team has worked tirelessly through the years to keep pace with the industry’s evolution. This year, for example, sees the introduction of the Agora XR Lab, a new program dedicated to XR and New Media projects in development that dovetails with Agora’s overall mission to “embrace technology and new realities of production,” according to Vergou.
The old certainties of how documentary films are financed, produced and distributed have crumbled, ushering in a new reality to which many industry professionals are still struggling to adapt. “When you hear it from everywhere, you know that there is a shift happening,” Vergou says. “We need to figure out — and when I say ‘we,’ I mean the industry, the funds, the broadcasters, the sales agents — everyone needs to sit down together and try to figure out the way forward. Definitely, there needs to be experimentation about what works, what doesn’t work. New ideas — we shouldn’t be afraid of trying new things.”
Highlighting Thessaloniki’s commitment to bringing new cinematic voices and ideas to the forefront, this year’s edition of the Pitching Forum and Docs in Progress — which include projects from Southeastern Europe, as well as the wider Mediterranean and Black Sea regions — aim to find a balance “between up-and-coming festival titles but also [films that] strike a more commercial chord,” Vergou explains.
Diversity, as ever, is key. “We try to amplify diverse voices and of course shed light on topics that are very important right now, like human rights, identity — and, of course, the war that is inevitable all around us,” says Vergou. “As well as love, romance, companionship.” She laughs. “Trying to find the hope in all of that.”
Fourteen projects from 15 nations — including two series, one documentary for kids and one animated documentary — will take part in this year’s Pitching Forum. Among them are new films from Poland’s Michał Marczak, a Sundance prizewinner for “All These Sleepless Nights,” and Belgium’s Volkan Üce, whose “All-In” played at CPH:DOX and Hot Docs. Recent editions have helped launch critically acclaimed films including Greek filmmaker Elina Psykou’s “Stray Bodies” (pictured), a Thessaloniki and CPH:DOX premiere in 2024, and “Blueberry Dreams,” by Georgia’s Elene Mikaberidze, which also premiered in Copenhagen last year.
Over at Docs in Progress, 10 projects from 12 countries have been selected to take part, along with four Greek documentaries chosen for the Agora Boost program dedicated to projects from the host nation. Among them are “Future Tenses,” from veteran Greek filmmaker Christos Karakepelis, and French-Algerian newcomer Mia Bendrimia’s “Magma,” which won several prizes at Marrakech’s Atlas Workshops. Recent Docs in Progress success stories include Portuguese director Paulo Carneiro’s Cannes Directors’ Fortnight premiere “Savanna and the Mountain,” and “Diaries From Lebanon,” by Lebanese filmmaker Myriam El Hajj, which premiered in the Berlinale’s Panorama Dokumente sidebar.
Agora head Angeliki Vergou
Courtesy of Thessaloniki International Film Festival
Thessaloniki’s Agora has long looked to boost projects from countries where documentary filmmakers are at risk — among the line-up this year are projects from Ukraine, Palestine, Georgia, Turkey and Algeria — and the upcoming edition will see the launch of a new initiative, Doc Together, in partnership with DOK Leipzig, that’s designed to address some of the critical challenges they face.
The initiative, says Vergou, aims to support the growing number of filmmakers “that cannot have access to funding due to political reasons, or because aspects of their identity [such as ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation] are targeted in their country.” That includes “displaced or exiled filmmakers, as well as filmmakers working in peril in their own countries,” she says. Working in collaboration with DOK Leipzig, which will host the event’s next chapter at its upcoming edition, the goal is to explore avenues for those filmmakers to access financing and other resources.
This year’s Agora is especially committed to fostering an environment that will allow the attending industry guests to thrive, both during the Thessaloniki event and when they return to their home countries. A session during the Agora Talks program, hosted in collaboration with #DocSafe, will look to further that initiative’s goals to address unsafe practices and foster accountability in the documentary industry.
Meanwhile, in the Warehouse complex that hosts Agora activities throughout the week, a “decompression room” will be available to all participants — whether to take part in morning sessions with a holistic therapist to prepare for the day ahead, or to “ground themselves after a day of meetings, pitching, networking,” says Vergou.
“Thessaloniki and Agora have always been a safe place to pitch, and to meet and network,” she adds. “But with everything that’s going on in the world, there is an extra need to feel safe and not exposed.”
The Thessaloniki Intl. Documentary Festival takes place March 6 – 16.
