‘FoG Films’ a dig at ministry, not TIFF
A total of 15 feature films, eight documentaries and 28 shorts will be screened at «FoG Films,» the cinema week organized by Filmmakers of Greece – that is the local filmmakers who decided not to participate in this year’s Thessaloniki International Film Festival (TIFF) in order to exert pressure on the Ministry of Culture in relation to an upcoming law on film funding. «FoG Films» will start tomorrow at the Elly cinema (64 Academias, tel 210.363.2789) and run to November 11. At a recent press conference held to announce the program, the filmmakers (whose members now total 171) said that they are not against the Thessaloniki Film Festival itself and that the «FoG Films» week, which will feature premieres of all Greek films that do not travel to Thessaloniki, is not a «counter-festival.» They said that they wanted to present the films in other cities as well and it has even been suggested that the «FoG Films» program might travel as far as New York. Moreover, the activities of the directors and producers who make up Filmmakers of Greece will not cease after the new law is passed, whenever that may be. «We will continue to exist after the law, for reasons of vigilance, but we will not turn into an association,» they pointed out. Their activities will have a «more powerful presence» after TIFF, when they will submit suggestions about points they wish to be included in the new law that Culture Minister Pavlos Geroulanos is preparing.
