Christos Passalis: Last News

Christopher Vourlias Training their lens on the largely untold story of the atrocities committed against Thessaloniki’s Jewish population during World War II, Syllas Tzoumerkas and Christos Passalis will bow “The City and the City” Feb. 15 in the Berlin Film Festival’s competitive Encounters strand.Unspooling in six fragmented chapters, the film tells the story of Thessaloniki’s Jewish community from the first half of the 20th century until the present day, where contemporary life reflects a city that violently and irrevocably lost its multicultural character, almost overnight.Natives who both left Thessaloniki in their twenties, the directors said they wanted to focus on what Tzoumerkas described as a “blind spot” in their respective upbringings, in which the suffering and near annihilation of the city’s Jewish community went virtually unmentioned.

Orestis Andreadakis, director of the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, has a lot on his mind when he sits down with Deadline via Zoom from his office in Athens. Climate change, women’s rights, and the war in Ukraine are all topics he discussed, and he believes film festivals, including his own, must find a way to address and interrogate wider social issues.