In the Competition section, as always, recently produced European films that have not yet been bought by a Greek distributor will compete for the Panorama prize. This year, the Jury consists of the established Greek directors Thodoros Angelopoulos (president), Dimos Avdeliodis, Vasilis Vafeas, Nikos Panayiotopoulos and Lakis Papastathis. Moreover, during the last years the Panorama has established a Prize that is awarded by a 5-member committee comprised of the readers of “Athinorama” magazine.

Among the  films of the Competition section, there is the amazing, poetic, free-flowing “Mysteries of Lisbon”, directed by Raoul Ruiz, whose recent death, at the age of 70, deprived European cinema (where he worked since he left his homeland Chile as a refugee) of a great and original creator. In the competition section, there is also a film from Cannes film festival, the political “Pater”, directed by the French Alain Cavalier. Cavalier made his debut in 1962 (“Le Combat dans l’île”) in the nouvelle vague era and continued his career pursuing a lonely –but always interesting- road. From Poland comes “Suicide Room” by Jan Komasa, dealing with a teenager boy whose computer obsession leads him into a dangerous dead end. Among the young directors of the competition section are the Russian Igor Voloshin with “Bedouin”, recounting a woman’s drama while her young child dies of cancer, the British Ben Whitley with his dark thriller “Kill List”, the Turks Sedat Yilmaz with the daring political “Press” and Tayfun Pirselimoglu with the Greek-Turkish production “Hair”.

In the “World Cinema Premieres” section of the 24^th Panorama, comes the awarded (Grand Prize of the Jury – Cannes film festival) Turkish film “Once Upon a Time in Anatolia” by Nuri Bilge Ceylan. Taking as a starting point the search for the grave of a murdered man by a group of people, Ceylan manages to create a phenomenal, visually mesmerizing film about corruption but also expanding on the political and social situation in contemporary Turkey. Furthemore, there is the American “The Help” by Tate Taylor, offering a touching dramatic image that has as a background the battle for human rights that shook America in the 1960s, the British “Jane Eyre”, a new take on the classic novel by Charlotte Brontë directed by Cary Fukunaga, with Michael Fassbender as a protagonist (awarded at the recent Venice film festival for the film “Shame”). The famed German Tom Tykwer participates with the film “Drei” that portrays a couple in their forties that falls in love with the same man, while Marius Holst is represented with the film “King of Devil’s Island” focusing on the uprising of delinquent boys living in an inhuman prison located on a Norwegian island. Finally, two Greek films also premiere in the festival: Zaharias Mavroeidis’ “The Guide”, Marina Danezi’s “Scavengers’ Union” and George Fourtounis’ short film “Head Down” that was recently awarded at the Drama film festival.