Kastellorizo International Film Festival ‘Beyond Borders’ to honour Australia this year

By Ilias Karagiannis

Nine years of a successful journey. Nine years in which the “Beyond Borders” festival has transformed Kastellorizo into a symbol of artistic creation and a meeting place for significant creators.

This year’s International Documentary Festival will take place from August 25th to September 1st, acting as a cultural bridge connecting Greece and Australia, with the latter being the honoured country of the festival, recognising its deep cultural connection with the island.

The Greek Herald spoke with the artistic director of the “Beyond Borders” festival, Irini Sarioglou, and in our conversation, its impressive journey is highlighted. Our discussion focuses on the importance of the festival for the Greek diaspora in Australia, while Ms Sarioglou passionately speaks about the new films and international collaborations.

The cultural activities of the festival, the significant personalities involved, such as Mitzi Goldman, and the Australian films that will be screened, offer a unique opportunity for the diaspora to reconnect with its roots through art and culture.

Starting the conversation, we asked Ms Sarioglou to give us a mental tour of the most important screenings and premieres the festival will host this year.

“The 9th edition of Beyond Borders – Kastellorizo International Documentary Festival, August 25th to September 1st, 2024, brings exciting films and many premieres from around the world. The edge of the Aegean, the border island of Kastellorizo, will once again be the beautiful setting, hosting internationally acclaimed creators in one of the most special and beloved film festivals in the country!” Ms Sarioglou said.

“This year, the festival received 763 documentaries from 95 countries, many of which have travelled to the biggest film festivals in the world such as Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Locarno, Karlovy Vary, Amsterdam (IDFA), Copenhagen (CPX DOX), and others. The festival’s screening programme includes 37 world, international, and Greek premieres.

“The festival is organised by the Greek Foundation of Historical Studies (IDISME) in collaboration with Ecrans des Mondes (Paris), with invaluable support from globally renowned institutions (ZDF, ARTE, BBC, RAI TV, Movies that Matter, IDF Prague, PHOENIX, FIPRESCI, Ecrans des Mondes, and others).

“Beyond Borders will host three different screening stages: the Main Competition Section, which includes 18 medium and feature-length documentaries, the Micro Competition Section, which includes 24 short documentaries, and the Panorama stage, which will feature daily different film tributes outside the competition. At the festival’s Opening Ceremony, the award-winning documentary Beethoven’s Nine: Ode to Humanity by Larry Weinstein will be screened in its Greek premiere. Inspired by Beethoven’s legendary work, it invites viewers to reflect on the timeless concepts of love and freedom, turning the film into a call for unity and reconciliation. At the Closing Ceremony, the film From Abdul to Leila by Leila Albayaty will be screened. This film is a musical journey between the West and the East, a lyrical documentary that combines the personal with the political, unfolding in a moving way the director’s reconciliation with her Iranian identity and heritage.

“A few words about some of the films to be screened: I Shall Not Hate by Tal Barda, Canada, which follows the uncharted journey of Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, the first Palestinian doctor to work in an Israeli hospital and deliver babies, whose ethic of forgiveness and reconciliation is tested when an Israeli tank bombs his home, killing his three daughters. We believe the above film, which is participating in the Main Competition Section, is timely, will be widely discussed, and we are happy to introduce it to the Greek audience. Also included are Greek productions that have been screened and found their way to cinemas such as Loxx by Dimitris Zachos and Thanasis Kafetzis and In the Sky of Nothing with Little by Christos Andrianopoulos. At the same time, we can distinguish emerging new talents, whose participation we hope will give voice to works like Anima by Kristin Ivanova, Old Summer by Maria Wider, and Monument by Maksim Avdeev.”

Parallel events with an Australian flavour

In addition to the film screenings, there will be cultural activities with a strong Australian flavour.

“This year marks the launch of the new initiative of the Beyond Borders Kastellorizo International Documentary Festival, the Co-Production Forum ‘Meeting your next co-producer in Kastellorizo.’ Fifteen peer filmmakers – creators, screenwriters, directors, producers, and executive producers – will present their works, share their experiences from completed films, and support at least one documentary project towards co-production, particularly from underrepresented countries, through two-hour meetings with their expertise,” Ms Sarioglou said.

“Furthermore, under the presidency of the General Secretary of the International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI), Klaus Eder, the Critics’ Corner will be held daily during the screenings, where the three FIPRESCI members will discuss with professionals and the public the films screened the previous night in the festival’s competition sections.

“In its second year, ‘Beyond Storytelling’ continues: a film workshop with the participation of students from the collaborating network of film schools, focusing each year on a thematic core intertwined with Kastellorizo and ‘initiating’ its members into all stages of film production, from development to post-production, producing a short documentary. The workshop is conducted in collaboration with Tel Aviv University and Queen’s University in Kingston (Canada), under the guidance of academic Uri Cohen, director Danae Elon, and award-winning director, writer, and photographer Liselle Mei.”

Ms Sarioglou also mentions Mitzi Goldman’s Australian presence.

“As every year, Masterclasses will be held with distinguished creators from the documentary field, such as Mitzi Goldman, co-founder and CEO of Documentary Australia, with ‘Documentary in an Age of Misinformation’ on ways to support investigative documentaries, Elise Aicardi with ‘How to Make a Co-Production with Public Sénat’, for co-productions with the French parliamentary channel, Bruce Clark, former International Security Editor of the Economist and author with the masterclass ‘Twice a Stranger’ on how historical events shape narratives and affect human experience based on the politics and diplomacy surrounding the Treaty of Lausanne, the experienced Irish filmmaker Alan Gilsenan with ‘Working on the Edge: Documentary Production and Ireland’ on the evolution of the documentary, the ethics of film production and the possibilities of collaboration and co-production between filmmakers, and Emmy-award-winning filmmaker and anthropologist André Singer with ‘From Disappearing World to Meeting Zelensky: 50 Years in Documentary Production’ discussing how anthropology led him to documentary production and sharing his knowledge of collaborating with world-famous filmmakers like Jean Rouch, DA Pennebaker, Robert Drew, Mike Grigsby, Fred Wiseman, and Werner Herzog, with whom he has worked on 17 films over the past 30 years,” she said.

“An integral part of the Festival is the two-day Audiovisual Pitching Lab, where 12 projects from around the world are presented online and discussed with top professionals from the film industry, who thus contribute decisively to the shaping and realisation of future cinematic endeavours. Head Moderator is Claudia Schreiner (Documentary Campus Masterschool, Germany), and the jury consists of undergraduate and postgraduate students from film schools in Athens, Sydney, Belgrade, and Istanbul. The winning proposal will receive a prize of a €1,500 film seminar sponsored by Filmiki Productions.”

Faithful to encouraging and training young creators, the festival continues the Network of International Film Schools, with many schools participating, and this year the Network has been joined by the Australian Film Television and Radio School, the only Australian school included in The Hollywood Reporter’s annual list of the top film schools worldwide.

“The collaboration with film schools,” Ms Sarioglou tells us, “includes, among other things, the participation of completed films in the micro competition stage, through which distinguished films will be screened on Phoenix – one of the largest European documentary television networks, participation in the Pitching Lab and its committee, participation in the international group of film students aiming to learn the stages of production (documentary studio), participation in the festival’s programming teams, and more. In parallel, there will be a sculpture exhibition by artist Alexandros Zygouris, while daily, journalist and author Pavlos Methenitis and academic Matteo Compagnolo will present books with historical, literary, and cinematic content, such as Bruce Clark’s book Twice a Stranger, the reissue of Tatiana Stavrou’s book on the Hellenic Literary Society of Constantinople (1967) by IDISME, and the historical album At the Edge of the Aegean – Kastellorizo, 1890-1948 by N. Papanastasiou and N. Vogiatzis.”

Kastellorizo, Australia, and personal vision

Kastellorizo and Beyond Borders are inextricably linked, and we asked Ms Sarioglou how the border island, with its strong Greek Australian element, was chosen as the festival’s base.

“There is a personal love and history with Kastellorizo; in the early ’90s, we discovered it as a family, loved it from the first moment, and since then acquired a holiday home which we visited regularly. Kastellorizo is connected with family memories, and the more we visited, the more we discovered and were captivated and moved by its history, especially during the 19th and 20th centuries. With this Festival, we highlight the beautiful and border Kastellorizo, transforming the island into an internationally renowned film and cultural centre,” she said.

This year, Australia is the festival’s honoured country, and as Ms Sarioglou states, “Australia was chosen for many reasons. Firstly, it is a significant cultural partner, and we have been in collaboration with Mitzi Goldman from Documentary Australia for years. Secondly, Australia is where the largest number of Kastellorizians emigrated – more than anywhere else in the world. Thirdly, Australia has a very active Greek diaspora, with active involvement in arts and culture, a Greek presence in all major cities, and ongoing connection to Greece. Fourthly, Kastellorizo and Sydney have been twin cities since the 1980s. Finally, Australian filmmakers are increasingly standing out internationally and impressing us with their work, which deserves recognition.”

“We already know that Australia has a significant presence in the visual arts, and this is proven by the great Australian participation in our festival this year. This includes the presence of internationally renowned institutions like Documentary Australia and Australian Film Television and Radio School, the Australian filmmakers competing, the participation of Australian students in the Pitching Lab, and Australian presence in the Masterclasses,” Ms Sarioglou added.

“As for this year’s tribute, we also have Australian filmmakers in the competitive sections: James Patterson, director of the award-winning film Machine: The Future of Artificial Intelligence, which explores the impact of AI on various aspects of human life; Sari Braithwaite, with the moving Under Cover, which presents the journey of a group of women living in shelters and exploring their struggles and dreams; and Maria Theodorakis, with the film Girt by Fear, which discusses how fear affects contemporary Australian society and political decisions. Australia is a significant cultural and political partner of Greece, and we are delighted that Beyond Borders is contributing to this relationship through the cinematic art,” Ms Sarioglou concludes.

For those who wish to attend the 9th International Documentary Festival “Beyond Borders”, they can get detailed information at www.beyondborders.gr.