Festivals of Thessaloniki

The tradition & historical record

The Festivals of Thessaloniki are a group of festivals held throughout the year in Thessaloniki, Greece. ¹

The Thessaloniki International Fair has a modern history dating to 1926. Hosted every September for 10 days at the 180,000 m² Thessaloniki International Exhibition Center, in the heart of the city, the fair is organised by HELEXPO, which also organises themed exhibitions and congresses throughout the year. The International Trade Fair is inaugurated by the Prime Minister and attended by more than 300,000 visitors every year. ¹

The Thessaloniki International Film Festival has become the primary showcase in Southeastern Europe for the work of new and emerging filmmakers, as well as the leading film festival of the region. The event features an International Section, its Panorama of Greek Film, the New Horizons program, the Balkan Survey, and numerous retrospectives and tributes to leading figures in the world of film. Since 1993, a succession of leading lights of international cinema, including Francis Ford Coppola, Faye Dunaway, Catherine Deneuve and Irene Papas, have visited the Festival. ¹

The Thessaloniki Documentary Festival was launched in March 1999, inspired by Dimitri Elpides and benefiting from the local public's enthusiastic response, alongside extensive coverage in the local and international press. In 2005, 22,000 admissions were registered. The main programme focuses on documentaries that explore global social and cultural developments, and also now introduces a number of new side sections and events based on important works by new documentarists. Films from the main programme will be candidates for the FIPRESCI and also the Audience Awards. The festival attracts a filmgoing public which rediscovers, year after year, images of the new century, new film ecritures, new directors, new technologies, but also representatives of the film world who find in it a reliable organisation appropriate for promoting their work. The event revolves around a sequence of unchanging sections: stories to tell, views of the world, the recording of memory, and portraits, but each year's programme is also supplemented with several others. The Festival aims to the offer the filmgoing public annually gathering in Thessaloniki an exploration of the common images of the early 21st century, and to explore its human landscape through documentary. ¹

The Thessaloniki International Festival of Photography (Photosynkyria) takes place in Thessaloniki from February to mid-April of every year, attracting the interest of both the photographic world and the wider public, while also functioning as a meeting point for the Greek and the international photographic scene. Photosynkyria exhibitions and events are hosted in a variety of venues around Thessaloniki, including museums, heritage landmarks, galleries, bookshops and cafes. Photosynkyria was launched in 1988 by photographer Aris Georgiou, and over the past five years has been organized by the Museum of Photography, which annually appoints the artistic director of the festival. ¹

The TIBF began in 2003 and has grown is the leading cultural event for books in Greece, as well as to become a focal point for the book world in Greece and the wider Balkan and Mediterranean region. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Festivals of Thessaloniki”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

Festivals of Thessaloniki is festivals of Thessaloniki, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 1 external register, which can be verified through the citation. ²