Ahead of the 26th Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival, Business Doc Europe chatted to Angeliki Vergou, Head of Agora. Agora is the gathering’s “developmental branch” unfolding both on site and virtually. The Greek industry event focuses on showcasing stories and filmmakers from the neighbouring region through a series of dedicated initiatives such as the Pitching Forum and the Docs in Progress section.
Each year, Thessaloniki hosts two festivals: the one dedicated to non-fiction and running from March 7-17, and the second unfolding in November and focusing on fiction films. “Agora was established in 2005 and since the beginning its mission was to offer a platform for the filmmakers from the region. The doc festival kicked off in 1999. In terms of industry events, at first it only had a video library showcasing Balkan films,” explains Vergou.
“We used to have a pitching forum, organised by the [now defunct] European Documentary Network until 2019. Then we started organising it ourselves, with the same ‘core notion’ [of putting a spotlight on the region]. This is our mission – to highlight stories and filmmakers from south-eastern Europe and the Mediterranean region, which includes the European part, the Middle Eastern part and the North African part, up to the Black Sea. So it’s a very wide [regional] concept.”
“We’re happy to connect the dots and bring filmmakers from our geographical area together with the Western part of Europe while creating opportunities for them and showcasing diverse voices.”
Zooming in on the Docs in Progress and the Pitching Forum, Vergou tells how the team adopts a “very selective” approach. “We pick 12-14 projects for the Pitching Forum and 10-12 for the Docs in Progress section. For the Pitching Forum, we pick projects in development, whilst Docs in Progress hosts projects that are almost finished, usually in post-production. These look for gap financing, festival premieres, sales agents and distributors. In the pitching forum, they mostly look for co-producers, financiers and sales agents, focusing on co-financing [their films].”
Vergou and her team aim to create a diverse line-up, while granting access to 3-4 Greek projects for both sections. This year, a new award will be handed out by IEFTA (the International Emerging Film Talent Association), which will offer a cash prize worth €10,000 to the most promising project in development.
Also in 2024, the new Agora Workshop will be inaugurated, set to focus on financing and distribution in non-fiction. This first edition will offer a deep dive into “the tools for private financing in Europe and the US.”
Vergou also touched on the Agora Lab, a closed workshop which kicked off four years ago and which sees the participation of filmmakers based in Greece and working on projects at different stages, from development to post-production. “We bring them together with tutors because of the very limited space we’ve got in the Pitching Forum and Docs in Progress. We recognise their international potential, and we want to give them the opportunity to discuss their projects further while getting professional feedback from industry experts.”
The lab will also hand out the Guidance Award, courtesy of Danish outfit Paradiddle Pictures, along with the newly introduced Crew United Prize, which includes a complimentary five-year premium membership to Crew United.
Meanwhile, the country of focus of this year’s Meet the Future will be the Czech Republic. Meet the Future is a joint effort of the festival and a film centre based in the region. Previous countries in focus include Moldova, Georgia and Serbia.
The initiative will put a spotlight on five emerging documentary talents. “[Typically], they’ve shot some shorts and are now developing their debut feature, or have already one feature released and now developing their second one. The endeavour is called Meet the Future because they are the future of the industry,” Vergou adds.
Agora’s key partners include Creative Europe and the Documentary Association of Europe (DAE). With the latter, the Agora team “exchanges ideas, preps the Agora talks, collaborates on preselecting projects” while shaping the format of the whole event.
“One of the things we’re doing differently from last year is that we’re reshaping the masterclasses’ original format and naming them ‘Talking Heads,’ [in order to make them] more inclusive and [to present them as] collective conversations responding to industry needs,“ the Agora chief underscores.
With the festival showcasing more than 60 Greek productions. Vergou bills the state of health of Greek documentary as “improved.” “[Greek documentaries] are being represented in markets more than it used to be in past. Greek docmakers are travelling and connecting with professionals. [..] What I see is that the industry professionals who are choosing to come to Thessaloniki are interested in the region and meeting up with Greek filmmakers. We hope we’ll have more co-production opportunities for them. Meanwhile, the Greek Film Centre is supporting docs by trying to seal more co-production treaties and to increase funding, bringing it at the same level of fiction.”
Agora has been acting as a powerful launchpad for many docs. Some of the most successful titles include Myriam El Hajj’s Diaries from Lebanon (which premiered in the Berlinale Panorama strand last month); Valerie Kontakos’ Queen of the Deuce (DOC NYC 2022); Khaled Jarrar’s Notes on Displacement (IDFA 2022); Mayye Zayed’s Lift Like a Girl (the first-ever Egyptian film acquired by Netflix); Sean Wang’s A Marble Travelogue(IDFA 2021); Arya Rothe, Cristina Haneș and Isabella Rinaldi’s A Rifle and a Bag (Special Mention in the Bright Future section of IFFR 2020); Einari Paakkanen’s Karaoke Nation (CPH:DOX 2022); Mattia Colombo and Gianluca Matarrese’s A Steady Job (Visions du Réel 2022); Alisa Kovalenko’s We Will Not Fade Away(Berlinale 2023), and Angelos Rallis’ Might Afrin: In the Time of Floods (Thessaloniki 2023).
Notably, this year’s Thessaloniki Doc Fest line-up includes 10 films developed during past editions of Agora. Among these are Elina Psykou’s Stray Bodies (also playing at CPH:DOX); Rand Beiruty’s Jordan-German co-production Tell Them About Us; Octavio Guerra’s exploration of the welfare system’s limits I Had a Life, and Jana Durajová and Lena Kusnieriková’s “kafkaesque” tale on the absurdity of bureaucracy Hanging Without Walls.
Towards the end of our conversation, Vergou spoke about the festival’s efforts in terms of sustainability and gender equality. “We’re very happy to have a 50/50 split in the Agora line-up – sometimes we even manage to welcome more women than men. That being said, [gender equality] is easier to achieve for documentary filmmakers because budgets are lower than in fiction. I think it’s worth mentioning this.”
“Speaking of sustainability, we’ve been doing so many activities, especially since the inception of the Evia Film Project in 2022. We’ve incorporated everything we know into the whole festival [concept]. We’ve a sustainability team and a [dedicated] consultant. There’s research being carried on our carbon footprint. We’re putting all our data into the Green Charter for Film Festival. We’ve added a €10 sustainability fee for all accredited guests, excluding the audience. And, Agora is also available online in case you don’t or can’t travel. Online attendees can access industry-related content and we record the talks to upload them on our platform.”
This year, Thessaloniki is ready to welcome about 400 guests; including 150 Greek professionals and 250 foreign industry reps. Prominent participants are producers, sales agents and festival programmers, as well as some commissioning editors and fund reps from key players such as Al Jazeera Balkans, SVT, BBC Storyville, BBC Arabic, the DFI, Docs Up Fund and ERT.
