Onassis Cinema

Celebrating independent Greek cinema.

Over the years, the Onassis Foundation has collaborated with the most prestigious film festivals in the country, elevating emerging talents during their first steps. Each year, it holds the Onassis Film Awards for Greek filmmakers developing their films. From the International Film Festivals of Thessaloniki to Athens, and from the Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival to the Drama International Short Film Festival, the Onassis Foundation is there at every celebration of cinema held in the country. The winners of the Onassis Film Awards in 2023–24 were Daniel Bolda (Maldives), Aristotelis Maragkos (Kafka’s Collection of Porn), Nikolas Kouloglou (Super), Savvas Stavrou (Buffer Zone), and Marianna Economou (Dark Waters).

Unleashing the creativity of emerging talents

Onassis Culture supports the short film format and embraces the process of artistic creation. For the third year running, we are holding an Open Call for Greek and international filmmakers to submit their proposals for short films, fiction and documentary, live-action and animation. Five proposals will receive 10,000 euros each. The selected projects will get the green light for production and make their way to the big screen, finding local and international audiences at festivals all around the world. The winning films for the 2024 call were The Peeling (Krysianna Papadakis, Stergios Dinopoulos), Free Eliza (The Unlikely Story of an Anatomical Anomaly) (Alexandra Matheou), Sparoza – Echoes in the Garden (Catriona Gallagher), Caps (Dimitris Theocharidis), and Zebra’s Island (Alexandros Kostopoulos).
The next Open Call will be announced in early 2025.

Bull's Heart by Eva Stefani

Eternal Desires The world of C. P. Cavafy, from Alexandria to New York by Christos Sarris

Albgreko by Ilir Tsouko

Tasos Langis' new documentary on Athens

Sacrifice by Romain Gavras

Cora by Evi Kalogiropoulou

Broken Vein by Yannis Economides

Little Death by Efthimis Kosemund Sanidis

Pirateland by Stavros Petropoulos

The Onassis Foundation has supported Greek cinema through important collaborations.

Hellenic Iris Awards

For ten years, Stegi has supported the awards of the Hellenic Film Academy, aiming to promote the local cinema’s most daring voices. The awards ceremony, hosted every year at Stegi, has been the top event of the year, bringing the entire film community together.

Meet the Future

Inaugurated in 2019, the “Meet the Future” section has been a collaboration with the Thessaloniki International Film Festival. Fifteen short film directors whose works have been screened at the biggest festivals in the world have had the opportunity to present their practice to the public within the framework of the 48th Thessaloniki International Film Festival. Two of the participants have become Onassis Fellows and have traveled to New York and Los Angeles, where the Onassis Foundation operates, to get to know the US film community up close.

Cinemability

Since 2016, the Onassis Foundation, in collaboration with the Movement of Disabled Artists, has created conditions for access to all film screenings of the Thessaloniki International Film Festival for the blind, visually impaired, deaf, and hard of hearing. Accessibility to the cinema has not been considered an ability, but a capability.

Oxbelly

Onassis Culture has supported the Oxbelly Screenwriters & Directors Lab held annually in Costa Navarino. Through workshops and talks, the Labs have given young directors the opportunity to develop scripts for their first or second feature film, with internationally acclaimed mentors such as Paul Thomas Anderson (Phantom Thread), Maren Ade (Toni Erdmann), and Lucrecia Martel (La Ciénaga) by their side.

Werner Herzog, Romain Gavras, Marjane Satrapi. Bold, renowned filmmakers introduce themselves to the Athenian public through their talks at Stegi. They share their personal stories and discuss about cinema and life. Watch the talks on the Onassis Foundation YouTube Channel.