Thessaloniki Documentary Festival Fronts Queer Cinema, Flies Flag for Greece’s LGBTQ Community After Historic Same-Sex Marriage Law

Christopher Vourlias Taking place just weeks after the historic passage of a bill legalizing same-sex marriage in Greece, the 26th edition of the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival — which runs March 7 – 17 — pays tribute to that watershed moment in the long-running fight for equal rights for the country’s LGBTQ community, while also issuing a rallying cry for diversity, inclusion and empowerment across the globe. “Our festival aspires to map out a detailed and thorough overview of our world’s complexity, welcoming films from the four corners of the world, which outline the radical changes, the challenges and the problems of our times,” says festival general director Elise Jalladeau.

The program spotlights “the urgent call for diversity, stories of women’s empowerment [and] the visibility not only of the LGBTQI+ community, but of all marginalized and oppressed groups of people who have suffered discrimination due to their identity,” she adds. Following on the historic victory for same-sex marriage rights — a first for an Orthodox Christian country — this year’s edition of the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival includes a wide-ranging tribute to queer cinema, “Citizen Queer,” which features “films that run through the history of the LGBTQI+ movement, biopics on legendary figures, historical documents [and] up-to-the-minute docs that forge the constantly-evolving LGBTQI+ community,” according to Jalladeau.

The festival will also mount a tribute to what it describes as the “fearless and pioneering cinema” of Panayotis Evangelidis, whose work has long focused on the visibility of the LGBTQ community. Evangelidis will be on hand to receive an honorary Golden Alexander award.

The festival begins March 7 with “They Shot the Piano Player,” a hybrid, hand-drawn animated documentary from Oscar-nominated Spanish directors Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal that focuses on the disappearance of Brazilian jazz pianist Francisco Tenório Júnior in Argentina in the ’70s. Trueba — described by Jalladeau as “one of the most distinguished directors in the history of Spanish cinema” — will be feted with an honorary Golden Alexander at this year’s festival, which will also include a