Thessaloniki's Agora Broadens Reach Under New Industry Chief

Three films developed through the Thessaloniki International Film Festival's Agora industry arm — including the first-ever Cypriot Oscar submission — play at this year's festival, all shortlisted for the European Film Awards in Athens. That is the track record Thanos Stavropoulos inherits as he takes charge of the Agora this spring, nearly two decades after the festival hired him as a programming assistant.

Stavropoulos, the festival's incoming industry head, says he is "committed to the same objective my predecessors served so very successfully" since the Agora launched in 2005: "to facilitate the growth of the local and regional industry through the establishment and continuous development of programs which will help bring the filmmakers and their projects out into the world."

The 66th edition opens under strain. Conflicts in Ukraine and Palestine, fears of a widening war in Iran and the Middle East, social and economic unrest across Europe, and studio shake-ups in the U.S. and Europe all press on the sector. "The world is a bit of a mess, isn't it?" Stavropoulos deadpans. "We can do only so much from where we stand, as professionals in this particular industry."

What changes this year?

Several concrete shifts mark the 2025 program:

• The Agora's conversation series, previously closed to industry guests, opens to all festivalgoers "with a curious mind and interests that go further than what's on the cinema screen."
• A decompression room, inaugurated last year as part of a festival-wide mental health focus, gains an Agora discussion on resolving conflict in creative collaborations.
• The series strand, launched in 2022, now runs across the opening weekend and has, in Stavropoulos's words, "grown and become more dynamic." Masterclasses come from Tom Rob Smith, screenwriter of "American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace," and Christopher Papakaliatis, creator of the Netflix hit "Maestro in Blue."
• A regional pitching platform for emerging and established screenwriters is in the works.

The series push has geopolitical backing. Greece signed the European Convention earlier this year — the first international treaty supporting independent co-production of series for television and streaming. "We want to catch that momentum and focus more on how we can help the local series industry and talents from Greece and the region benefit from this treaty," Stavropoulos says. Whether a festival platform can convert treaty text into financed series remains the open question; the Agora is betting it can.

The alumni evidence is real. Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov's "Black Money for White Nights," Myrsini Aristidou's "Hold Onto Me" and Alina Șerban's "I Matter" all screen at the festival and all sit on the European Film Awards shortlist. Aristidou's Sundance-awarded debut is the first Cypriot submission for the Oscars.

This year's Crossroads Co-Production Forum and Agora Works in Progress, serving Southeast Europe, the Mediterranean and the Black Sea region, present new projects from Tribeca prizewinner Darko Lungulov ("Here and There"), Serbia's Nikola Ležaić ("Tilva Roš") and Egypt's Ayman El Amir and Nada Riyadh ("The Brink of Dreams"), the 2024 Variety MENA Talents of the Year.

"We'll venture in every direction and move towards every horizon: from Beirut to the moon and then time travel to the '80s," Stavropoulos says. "There's no particular geography; our projects' creative teams' visions and dreams go above and beyond space and time."

Growth will be horizontal, not vertical. "What we will certainly continue to do is sustainably grow. Our size will not change. But we will reach out further into the world and our circle of friends will widen," he says, describing a mandate to "connect, network and create opportunities for the local and regional film professionals."

The pledge is measured — and that restraint is the point. "Thessaloniki sits at the very crossroads of the wider region of Southeast Europe and the Mediterranean," Stavropoulos adds, "and the Agora is the natural place for these connections to begin and to grow."

The Thessaloniki Film Festival runs Nov. 5–15.