27th Athens International Film Festival at home! Introducing the festival's online platform

On online.aiff.gr, one can find films from all the festival’s categories available for online viewing, costing 3€ each. By creating an account, one can find the films available and buy them. From the moment of the purchase, the films are available for viewing within three days.

From the moment the film starts, the film is available for 24 hours. In this time, one can pause the film, move it backwards or forward, rewatch the whole film or some of its scenes.

The dates each film is available are displayed next to the title and the films are available until the online reservations are sold out (400 viewers per film).

Celebrating the 10 years of the Greek Short Stories section, the festival platform will host from Thursday, September 23, all the short films that won the Best Film award in previous years.

The short films will be shown in detail online:
"Chamomile" by Neritan Zinjiria
"Red Hulk" by President Asimina
"II" by Efthymis Kozemund Sanidis
"Simon Says" by Nikos Tsemperopoulos
"Limbo" by Konstantina Kotzamani
"Copa-Loca" by Christos Massalas
"Hector Malo - The Last Day of the Year" by Jacqueline Lenzou
"The Distance Between Heaven and Us" by Vassilis Kekatos
"The End of Pain: A Proposal" by Jacqueline Lenzou

 

This is a unique opportunity to watch some of the best Greek short films of recent years and we want to thank the directors, directors and producers for the kind permission of the films. The specific films will be available for free and for 300 screenings each.
For additional information about the online platform, click here.

Below are listed the films of the festival available:

THE NIGHT BELONGS TO LOVERS / LA NUIT AUX AMANTS
DIRECTOR: Julien Hilmoine

Two old schoolmates, a boy and a girl, run into each other by luck. Circumstances are such that they are forced to spend a night together, alone with their secrets, their desires and their sexual urges. The night they spend together will be full of disclosure, extremely sexual and in its own way overwhelming. With two courageous and photogenic leads, gem-like dialogues, youthful simmering desire in every frame and stunningly titillating, one of the highly-promising French directors offers up a surprise debut, arousing in more than one sense and indicative of how a film can be exciting even if only two actors are in it.

PEBBLES/ KOOZHANGAL
DIRECTOR: Vinothraj P.S.

In an uncharted area of Southern India, a boy decides to involve himself in his parents' dispute and the wild desert landscape is transformed into a transcendental purgatory where scattered souls seek the edge of an infinite horizon. The sun is the only witness in a skillfully made drama, made of light, dust and as much hope as could fit in a child’s handful of pebbles. Recipient of the Tiger Award at the Rotterdam International Film Festival for a pure and precious film which doesn’t hesitate to touch upon contemporary issues in its own otherworldly dialect.

HUMAN FACTORS
DIRECTOR: Ronny Trocker

A mysterious masked invasion of the country home of a wealthy German family shakes its foundations revealing the subjectivity of truth and lays bare the vulnerability of relationships. Increasing paranoia infiltrating the family is filmed with Haneke-worthy fixation and gender roles are analysed with the boldness of a “Force Majeure”, this low-intensity thriller is presented as a puzzle for the viewer to put together, without necessarily having all the pieces to hand.

THE FIRST DEATH OF JOANNA / A PRIMIERA MORTE DE JOANA
DIRECTOR: Cristiane Oliveira

South Brazil in the summer. Thirteen-year-old Joana bids a beloved relative farewell. Her first experience of sadness is accompanied by an unanswered enigma: is it true that “aunt Rosa” died without ever having been with a man? Along with her best friend, Joana embarks on an investigation into Rosa’s past, realising that, like her, all the women in her family harbour a secret. A brilliant coming-of-age film, which touches on various aspects of the psychological makeup of teenagers through the life and secrets of others, through loss and friendship, exalting sexuality which is always unexpectedly awakened.

 

THE SACRED SPIRIT  / ESPIRITU SAGRADO
DIRECTOR: Chema García Ibarra

A sect of ufologists in the Levante of Spain loses its leader and the lot falls to the second in command to continue the work of the deceased, while the local community follows the disappearance of a girl, with great turmoil. Far from a straightforward satire about conspiracy theorists everywhere, this startling underground debut by García Ibarra hits all the right notes capturing a horrifyingly disparate reality. You start off smiling but soon the smile is wiped off your face. Recipient of a Special Mention award at the Locarno International Film Festival.

 

THE DOG WHO WOULDN’T BE QUIET / EL PERRO QUE NO CALLA
DIRECTOR: Ana Katz

The veteran director Dominik Graf only requires a single take to transport us from the present day to the last wild days of Weimar. There, in the progressive environment of night-time Berlin, a young advertiser will meet a beautiful and ambitious actress.Their relationship will become the only ray of light in a world falling apart around them, gradually succumbing to Nazi darkness. With a doomed romance at the heart of its abounding narrative, Erich Kästner’s masterpiece becomes a restless cinematic epic which automatically brings to mind the literary masterpiece titled “Berlin Alexanderplatz”.

 

SISTERS WITH TRANSISTORS
DIRECTOR: Lisa Rovner

The Avant-garde priestess Laurie Anderson guides us through a figurative secret gallery exhibiting portraits of pioneers of electronic music. Together they tell a story dominated by women, with the vibrating dynamics of the theremin, buried deep under gigantic analogue machines and patriarchal prejudice. Through massive amounts of archival footage and imposing soundwaves, the road from Clara Lockmore to Bebe Barron and from Wendy Carlos to Suzanne Ciani becomes an exciting landmark of a documentary about the history of this genre of music and a revision of the dynamics between the two sexes in the modern day.

 

SABAYA
DIRECTOR: Hogir Hirori

At the most dangerous military camp in the Middle East, a mobile phone and a gun are all that Mahmud and his team have as they endanger their lives daily in an effort to save women being held by ISIS as “Sabaya” (sex slaves). With a burqa (literally) over the camera and with the sound of whizzing bullets around them, the camera bravely follows along on night missions and extreme pursuits in a thriller of a documentary which won a Directing Award thanks to its shocking approach and may well be up for a nomination in the coming Oscars.

TRUMAN & TENNESSEE: AN INTIMATE CONVERSATION
DIRECTOR: Lisa Immordino Vreeland

The parallel lives of two friends and geniuses, who created great masterpieces all the while being haunted by ghosts of the past, the constant shadow of doubt, the demons of addiction and the dazzling and misleading glamour of success. Tennessee Williams and Truman Capote in a fictional posthumous dialogue on life and the tragic tricks it plays on people, elaborately put together in a historically, artistically and sentimentally precious documentary. Introduction by Antonis Galeos, director.

 

MLK/FBI
DIRECTOR: Sam Pollard

Through his collaborations with Spike Lee and his personal utterly incisive work, Sam Pollard has evolved into one of the top chroniclers of Black America. With the vigour of exhaustive journalistic research and the intensity of a political thriller, his new documentary brings to light recently declassified FBI documents which help him zone into the source of fear, ground zero of the racist propaganda of the US government against Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

SEE YOU THEN
DIRECTOR: Mari Walker

Two exes meet after thirteen years. One is married with children, the other is now a trans woman. They spend a whole night together and the more the intimacy between them is rekindled the closer they get to the memory of the traumatic event that defined their relationship. Disarmingly minimalist and directed with simplicity so as to focus only on what is necessary. The film, by transgender Mari Walker, is a calm and earnest outlook on the road to transition, but also on all the big and small things left behind, temporarily putting our lives on hold. Winner of the outstanding Performance award at L.A. Outfest.

 

NORTH BY THE CURRENT
DIRECTOR: Angelo Madsen Minax

A Transgender director returns to his hometown wanting to stir up the mysterious death of his three-year-old niece. Inevitably, this tragic case will open up old wounds from the family’s past including his own transition. Amidst an evocative detective mystery, a poetic documentary and a deeply personal journal made up of home movies, comes a liberating film about the strength it takes to withstand regrets, guilt and the demons that define you. Winner of a Special Mention at L.A. Outfest.

FAYA DAYI
DIRECTOR: Jessica Beshir

Khat is an ancient drug used frequently by the people of Africa and the Middle East,especially by Sufis who would chew the leaves as a means for religious mediation (known as “merkana”). Nowadays, it plays a determining role in Ethiopia’s economy as it is the country’s main export. Through a personal story, a hypnotic documentary made of soundscapes and textures shaped by sunlight, document’s Khat’s footprint on a nation surrendered to its euphoric hallucinations.