In the year since the Thessaloniki Intl. Documentary Festival organized its 2025 edition around the theme of artificial intelligence, the technology has advanced by leaps and bounds, disrupting industries, reshaping livelihoods, flooding our feeds with machine-generated slop and further blurring the line between reality and fiction. The old adage no longer holds true: Seeing isn’t necessarily believing.
What might feel like an existential threat, however, can also be seen as a challenge — even a call to action, according to Thessaloniki festival director Orestis Andreadakis. “It’s true that AI has become more and more present in our everyday lives, and in many unpredictable and unforeseen ways. Its omnipresence has definitely complicated our relationship with the truth,” Andreadakis tells Variety.
“The way information circulates and narratives are structured has profoundly changed, often leaving us frustrated, confused, or even deceived. The same goes for the way realities are perceived,” he continues. “Many of the films we’re presenting this year…remind us that documentary is not simply about showing what is real — it is about addressing reality in a critical way. Rather than diminishing their importance, the present moment clarifies why documentaries are needed now more than ever.”
A writer, thinker and veteran critic who’s been at the helm of the Thessaloniki festival and its sister event since 2016, Andreadakis has spent his share of time musing on AI, technology and how digital disruption is transforming both cinema and daily life. The results, he finds, are often troubling. “In our contemporary digital world, everything is recorded, struggling to remain alive, to be kept for future use,” he says. “When everything is available, nothing is truly present.”
That recognition helped inspire the thematic framework of the 28th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, running March 5 – 15, which offers a cinematic tribute to archives, celebrating their creative use “not as a static and enclosed archive of the past, but as something alive, pulsating, ever-changing,” according to Andreadakis.
This year’s edition opens March 5 with “Ask E. Jean,” Ivy Meeropol’s documentary portrait of the trailblazing journalist E. Jean Carroll, a celebrated advice columnist, editor and bestselling author who twice sued President Trump for sexual assault and defamation — and emerged victorious both times. The festival wraps March 15 with “Mr. Nobody Against Putin,” the Oscar-nominated feature from David Borenstein and Pavel Talankin about a Russian teacher fighting back against nationalist propaganda. The closing ceremony will be followed by a live transmission of the Academy Awards from the Dolby Theatre.
Thessaloniki festival director Orestis Andreadakis
Courtesy of Olympia Krasagaki
A total of 252 feature-length and short documentary films will be screened at this year’s event, including a record 80 world premieres, as well as 32 international and 11 European premieres. Among the 14 titles vying for a Golden Alexander in the international competition is Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner “Nuisance Bear,” directing duo Gabriela Osio Vanden and Jack Weisman’s exploration of the manmade threats to a remote Canadian wilderness known as the “polar bear capital of the world,” which will have its international premiere in Thessaloniki.
Also arriving from Park City are Janay Boulos and Abd Alkader Habak’s “Birds of War,” which delves into the personal archives of the London-based Lebanese journalist Boulos and the Syrian-based activist and cameraman Habak to explore their love across 13 years of revolutions, war and exile, as well as Sinéad O’Shea’s “All About the Money,” which follows billionaire media scion Fergie Chambers’ founding of a Marxist-Leninist collective in rural Massachusetts.
World premieres include “Derek vs. Derek,” from BAFTA-winning U.K. director James Dawson, which follows two feuding farmers in the English countryside, and “The Golden Swan,” by Norway’s Anette Ostrø, which uses posthumously discovered poems and letters to reconstruct the final months of the director’s brother, who was kidnapped by militants in Kashmir.
A trio of Greek filmmakers will also be bowing new features in the international competition: Lucas Paleocrassas, whose “Bugboy” follows a shy teenager with misaligned eyes who finds refuge in the world of insects; Fokion Bogris, who charts five decades of Greek cinema through the perspective of a prolific supporting actor in “The Golden Grip”; and Eirini Vourloumis, who offers a portrait of Athens told through the lives of three veteran taxi drivers in “The Way Elsewhere.”
Highlights of this year’s event include a special screening of “In-I in Motion,” the directorial debut of Oscar-winning French actress Juliette Binoche, who will also be delivering a masterclass about her celebrated career and her transition to the director’s chair. The festival will also host the world premiere of “Desmond Child Rocks the Parthenon,” by director Heather Winters, who will be in attendance with the legendary American songwriter Child, as well as the film’s producer, the composer and lyricist Phoebus.
Meanwhile, an honorary Golden Alexander will be awarded to Oscar-nominated filmmaker and multimedia artist Bill Morrison (“Dawson City: Frozen Time”), who will deliver a masterclass on his evolution as an artist and filmmaker, addressing how archival footage has played a role in his practice. The festival will also honor Morrison with a tribute featuring a selection of his acclaimed works. Also being feted in Thessaloniki will be pioneering Greek filmmaker Vouvoula Skoura, who will be celebrated with a showcase of 20 of her films, and iconic film producer Yorgos Papalios, whose name has become synonymous with the rebirth of Greek cinema rebirth. Both will receive honorary Golden Alexander Awards during special ceremonies.
Finally, this year’s festival will include a sneak-peek preview of Filmography, a soon-to-be-launched digital database documenting, preserving and showcasing Greek cinema, featuring detailed information on over two thousand films and highlighting the moments and people who shaped Greek cinema. A collaboration between the Thessaloniki Film Festival, the Hellenic Film and Audiovisual Center (EKKOMED) and the Hellenic Film Academy, the platform — which is expected to be fully available this spring — will be introduced during a presentation on March 13.
The Thessaloniki Intl. Documentary Festival runs March 5 – 15.
