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When the Thessaloniki Intl. Film Festival kicks off its 64th edition on Nov. 2, the organizers will unveil a host of changes while renewing their commitment to serving audiences at one of Europe’s longest-running film events — all at a time of almost unprecedented uncertainty over the future of cinema and even the very purpose of festivals themselves.

With a sister documentary festival held each March and a year-round program of workshops, screenings, special events and other education and outreach initiatives, Thessaloniki has established itself as a hub to “exchange ideas, train, reflect and celebrate cinema with the public,” says festival general director Elise Jalladeau.

It’s also uniquely positioned to adapt to a rapidly changing industry.

“We operate in an ecosystem that has changed radically over the past five years and the pace is accelerating,” says Jalladeau, calling the challenges ahead “immense, but also very motivating.” Still, Thessaloniki remains committed...

Agora, the industry section of the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, has selected 10 films from seven countries for its works in progress strand.

The strand selects projects in post-production stage, which have a link to the Mediterranean region and Southeastern Europe, and presents them to sales agents, distributors, producers, streaming platforms and festival programmers with the objective to raise finishing funds, secure sales agents, festival premieres and book meetings with potential partners.

“This year’s powerful projects challenge contemporary issues and gaze upon the human condition through gripping imagery, sometimes painfully beautiful storytelling and creative cinematic language. Their common compass navigates us through the subjects of social injustice, exploration of human relationships and common desires and choices people make to treat one another and the environment they inhabit,” the festival said in a statement.

Agora gives out several awards for the works in progress films. These include the Authorwave post-production award...

All the winners from the event in Cluj.

Nana & Simon’s (Nana Ekvtimishvili and Simon Gross) My Happy Family was the big winner this weekend at the Transilvania International Film Festival (Tiff) in Romania’s Cluj, clinching the $16,822 (€15,000) Transilvania Trophy.

In addition, the film’s lead actress Ia Shugliashvili was presented with the best performance award for her first acting role as a woman giving her life a radical change on her 52nd birthday.

The competition jury, which included producers Andras Muhi and Elizabeth Karlsen and film critic Geoff Andrew, presented the best directing award to Icelandic film-maker Gudmundur Arnar Gudmundsson for his debut Heartstone which was also voted by the festival-goers as the winner of this year’s Audience Award.

The jury gave its special jury award to UK film-maker Francis Lee’s debut God’s Own Country (pictured) and made a special mention of Glory, the second feature by the Bulgarian co-directing team of [link...

All the winners from the event in Cluj.

Nana & Simon’s (Nana Ekvtimishvili and Simon Gross) My Happy Family was the big winner this weekend at the Transilvania International Film Festival (Tiff) in Romania’s Cluj, clinching the $16,822 (€15,000) Transilvania Trophy.

In addition, the film’s lead actress Ia Shugliashvili was presented with the best performance award for her first acting role as a woman giving her life a radical change on her 52nd birthday.

The competition jury, which included producers Andras Muhi and Elizabeth Karlsen and film critic Geoff Andrew, presented the best directing award to Icelandic film-maker Gudmundur Arnar Gudmundsson for his debut Heartstone which was also voted by the festival-goers as the winner of this year’s Audience Award.

The jury gave its special jury award to UK film-maker Francis Lee’s debut God’s Own Country and made a special mention of Glory, the second feature by the Bulgarian co-directing team of Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov...

Hungarian action-comedy Kills On Wheels and Icelandic-Danish coming of age story Heartstone take top prizes at Greek festival.Scroll down for full list of winners

Hungarian director Attila Till’s Kills On Wheels (Tiszta Szivvel) has been named best film at the 57th Thessaloniki International Film Festival (Nov 3-13) winning the “Theo Angelopoulos” Golden Alexander award.

The film beat out 16 first and second films screened in this year’s competition section.

Kills On Wheels’ three leading young actors, Zoltan Fenyvesi, SzaboIcs Thuroczy and Adam Fekete were jointly awarded the Best actor trophy.

The film, arriving from the Chicago film festival where it won the Roger Ebert award, deals with three wheelchair-using young adults who decide to offer their services to the mafia in an effort to overcome their daily routines. World sales are handled by the Hungarian Film Fund.

Icelandic-Danish co-production Heartstone (Hjartasteinn) by Icelandic director Gudmundur Arnar Gudmundsson, was awarded the Special Jury Prize, Silver Alexander...

Political sci-fi drama stars Sofia Kokkali.

Athens-based sales agent Heretic Outreach has added Alexandros Voulgaris’s Thread to its sales slate ahead of the film’s premiere at Thessaloniki International Film Festival on Wednesday (Nov 9).

Starring Sofia Kokkali (Little England), the sci-fi drama is directed by Voulgaris, under his film-making moniker The Boy, whose directing credits include Crying? (2003) and Pink (2006) both of which played at Tiff, and more recently Higuita (2012).

Produced by Eleni Bertes, the film had financial support from the Greek Film Centre and the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation.

Set in a dystopian society, the story follows a mother who is torn between her commitment to serving The Party and her responsibilities of being a mother.

The film screens in Thessaloniki twice on Wednesday and has a further screening on Thursday (Nov 10).

Heretic Outreach has four films playing in Thessaloniki, joining Thread are Paul Negoescu’s Romanian box office hit Two Lottery Tickets, Stergios Paschos’s Locarno...

For the fifth year, IndieWire is co-hosting the Locarno Critics Academy, giving a group of talented up-and-coming critics a chance to help their role in the current climate for film criticism and journalism at the Locarno International Film Festival. With assistance from Penske Media, the Swiss Alliance of Film Journalists and the Film Society of Lincoln Center, participants will engage in a series of activities and then get to work. They will spend the first half of the festival which begins today, in roundtable discussions with working critics and industry figures; beginning next week, they’ll write about films at this year’s festival, as well as topics ranging from television to digital media.

Before then, take a minute to get to know them, and find out what they’re looking forward to checking out. Keep up with their dispatches from this year’s festival here and follow them on Twitter.

Seventh edition of the development scheme will include nine projects of first or second feature films.

TorinoFilmLab has unveiled its selection for FrameWork 2014.

The seventh edition of the development scheme will include nine projects of first or second feature films, representing ten countries. The participants will work on their projects throughout two week-long workshops under the guidance of international experts.

Following these workshops, there will be a public pitch at the TorinoFilmLab meeting event, held during the 32nd Torino Film Festival. The jury will assign production awards (starting from €50,000), while an audience award (€30,000) will be given to the project most voted for by the attending decision makers.

TorinoFilmLab’s partners will also award various prizes.

The projects, formed in majority from TorinoFilmLab’s Script&Pitch programme, are:

Aleli by Ana Guevara & Leticia Jorge, producer Agustina Chiarino (Uruguay)Carbon by Michalis Konstantatos, producer Yorgos Tsourgiannis (Greece)Hunting Season by Natalia Garagiola, producer Benjamin...