This is a shame and injustice. An international festival, lively, hectic, with quick reflexes that keeps history alive, as well as an avant-garde in cinematic art that embraces developments in the audiovisual field, extroverted and resourceful to host such an unrivaled closing ceremony. Last night at the Olympion, the procession from the stage of sponsors, organizations, associations, etc., to present each of their established awards, made the evening look like a provincial announcement conference, and not like a film awards ceremony.

Obviously, the Thessaloniki Festival cannot do without sponsors. It’s clear. However, instead of the outdated concept of “I have to go on stage to be ‘seen’ in order to present an award”, perhaps decision makers should think about new communication concepts and methods, adjust the “easy” appearance strategy and focus on something else. , smart and innovative? It would help both the festival and them. But the institution itself, for reasons of self-defence, must establish conditions and restrictions.

Last night, in addition to the awards of the international competition program, marked two new faces in Greek cinema. Just like last year when The Outsider, Giorgos Gusis’s Magnetic Fields was named the 2022 film of the year. Asimina Proedru and Spyros Iakovidis made a surprise on Sunday evening. The first with her film “Behind the Haystacks” went on stage six times, and the second with “Black Stone” – four times.

Asimina Proedru, in her first feature film, some ten years after her award-winning short film The Red Hulk (about the birth and gigantism of the Golden Dawn), focuses on a microcosm of the family on the northern borders of Greece. Black Stone, using mockumentary as a medium (faces talking to crew members), creates a bittersweet satire, a social commentary on both family and xenophobia (the mother figure played by Eleni Kokkidu is excellent).

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The international competition program of the 63rd Festival had a varied theme, revolving around issues of sexuality and gender, social marginalization, which also concerned the elderly. In our opinion, two films stood out: “I Have Electric Dreams” by Valentina Morel from Costa Rica, which was awarded the Golden Alexander “Theodoros Angelopoulos”, as well as an award for male performance (Reinaldo Amien Gutierrez), and the Japanese “Design 75” by Chi Hayakaua, who received the Bronze Alexander Prize for directing (as well as other individual awards, such as the Hellenic Parliament’s “Human Values”). The first concerns the difficult and traumatic relationship between an irritable but poetically searching jobless father and his equally aggressive and rebellious teenage daughter. The second is a Japanese work of art. The ominous future he describes – a government “plan”/offer to pay for voluntary euthanasia for people aged 75 and over – he describes with heartbreaking sensitivity, respect and fondness for loneliness. For older people who are trying to survive without wanting to be a burden to anyone.

Silver Alexander – the Committee’s Special Prize was awarded to the Swiss film A Piece of Paradise by Michael Koch. The action takes place in an isolated village where a young lonely woman and an intruder from the plains meet and fall in love.

Among the special and emotionally charged moments of the ceremony was the presentation of the “Golden Alexander” of the festival’s parallel program “Meet the Neighbors” to the Ukrainian film “Klondike” by Marina Er Gorbach. The director, traveling around Los Angeles, sent a thank you video, which was shown on the Olympion screen: “In Ukraine, they are going to cinemas again. They sold out even at premieres. In my opinion, this is a sign of life…,” he said, among other things. “These days we are celebrating the liberation of Kherson from Russian occupation. I want to dedicate the award to people who want to live.”