Christopher Vourlias With their Athens offices shuttered by the pandemic in the weeks leading up to this year’s Thessaloniki Intl.
Film Festival, industry head Yianna Sarri and her brain trust began holding weekly meetings at cafés in the Greek capital, social-distancing and trying to make the most of an increasingly fluid and unpredictable situation.Despite the uncertainty about whether or not the festival would move forward with a physical edition—a plan that was ultimately scrapped just days before the opening night on Nov.
5—Sarri and her team knew that Agora, the festival’s industry arm, would be an online affair. “We took this decision from the beginning,” she told Variety.The group might have felt an uncanny sense of déjà vu: this.
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