With a… «Event», the 14th will open its gatesο Larissa International Film Festival on Monday, May 9th at the Hatzigianniou Cultural Center in the city. This is the title film of Ondre Duvan, which won the Golden Lion and the Best Film Award from the International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) at the 2021 Venice Film Festival.
Based on the eponymous book by Annie Ernaux, which in turn is based on the author’s personal experience from almost five decades ago, «The Event» takes us to France in 1963 and the dilemmas of a promising student who, while seeing her university studies as the only way out of the working class from which she was born, finds out that she is pregnant. Her dreams seem doomed unless she manages to terminate her pregnancy, which is still illegal and socially reprehensible at that time. In the film, which will be shown in its original version, a few weeks before its release in theaters, the main roles are played by Anamaria Vartolomei, Kasie Motte-Klein, Pyo Marmai, and the Greek-born Anna Muglali.
14ο FCFL reserves, however, another avant-premiere event for its viewers: Dimitris Kanellopoulos’s «Sheep Herd», one of the best Greek films of the year, which was awarded the Audience Award for a film in the International Competition at last year’s Thessaloniki International Film Festival. It is a modern Western set in the Greek countryside, about a farmer’s head of household’s confrontation with the loan sharks who owe him money and his struggle to convince his fellow villagers, also borrowers, to face the threat together. It is an exciting dramatic adventure starring Dimitris Lalao, Aris Serbetali, Giannis Vasiloutto, Lefteris Polochroni, Dimitris Liolios, Dimitris Xanthopoulos, Vibia Petsi and Dimitra Kousa, which will be shown on the eve of the festival’s closing.
Let us remind you that this year’s FCL event features 72 short films in its official competition program, divided into three separate sections – Greek, International and Animation. In addition to the numerous screenings, which include tributes and collaborations with leading film institutions, it also prepares various activities. Among them is the masterclass with Giorgos Frangos, a cinematographer with a career spanning four decades and collaborations with renowned creators such as Nikos Panagiotopoulos and Pantelis Voulgaris. A founding member of the Greek Film Society (GSC), as well as a member of the European Film Academy (EFA) and the Greek Film Academy, Giorgos Frangos will give us his insights in a special masterclass on the crucial role of cinematography in cinema.
We point out that the attendance of all the events of the International Film Festival of Larissa is free for the public.
We stay tuned on staging.iffl.gr/
