Up one level       Thessaloniki Film Festival Dec 2010
1 A greeting for me at the airport ! 2 At the airport, Julie from Kino Climates meeting. 3 One hand expert driving of the festival guests ! 4 5 My hotel. 6 7 The entrance to the dedicated pier where converted warehouses exist for the festival. 8 The John Cassavetes and Stavros Tornes building. 9 Oh, spell his name right for Christ's sake ! 10 Getting accredited. 11 The ever-friendly Lilly at her desk. 12 Press room. 13 14 Last-minute preparations. 15 16 The Olympion theatre, the main festival venue. 17 18 19 Opening Night. A political blockade ! 20 Stopping entry into the venue. 21 Festival staff inside the foyer. 22 Festival director Dimitri Eipides (with the tie) looks worried. 23 24 But the show goes on - most of the guests had already entered via a side entrance. 25 26 27 Fellow Greek-Australian film critic Petro Alexiou. 28 The cops on the following morning. 29 30 The Experimental Forum screenings under way. 31 Experimental Forum programmer Vassily Bourikas in the middle. Australians Quentin Turnour and Marcus Bergner flanking. 32 33 Turkish filmmaker Yoel Meranda with Australian Marcus Bergner. 34 The John Cassavetes Cinema. 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 Yoel with Australian filmmaker John Cumming. 42 Me with Stella and filmmaker Dimitri Athanitis. 43 44 Vassily in action. 45 Julie, Marcus, Quentin. 46 German filmmakers Annette Frick and Wilhelm Hein at right. 47 John Cumming with Yannis. 48 Vassily's dog Schmidty !! 49 Pip with Quentin. 50 Kino Climates meeting. 51 Elena Christophorou from the festival. 52 The 53 54 And with me in there as well. 55 56 57 58 Vassily's hotel room. 59 Vas with his assistant. 60 61 The conductor. 62 Wilhelm Hein makes a point. 63 Wilhelm and John photograph proceedings. 64 I had an invite this night to join the Ambassador of France, instead I was with the crazy Experimental Forum gang of course ! 65 Pip plays the mouth harp. 66 67 68 And at 2am we all march onwards to get drunk till 6am (well, I myself went home at 2am!!) 69 70 71 72 Lefteris introduces Apichatpong 73 74 Ever-humble Joe. 75 This fan was at all of Joe's screenings/talks. 76 Premiere of Greek film Attenberg. 77 The great Greek actor Vangelis Mourikis. 78 79 80 Joe's 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 Another dinner party with the Experimental Forum gang. 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 Finally, Closing Night. 104 Romanian award-winners ! 105 106 And after the festival, life gets back to