Onassis Film Award at the 25th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival
Onassis Culture, consistently supporting the development of independent Greek cinema and in the framework of its long-running collaboration with the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, honors with the Onassis Film Award one of the Greek projects that participate in the Agora department of the 25th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival.
Onassis Culture initiates a dialogue between the world we live in and the worlds we want to live in. Through a series of documentaries produced by the Onassis Foundation, issues that concern us are raised, turning the gaze on individual and collective realities, on personal stories worth telling, on dreams, experiences, and new narratives. The Onassis Culture-produced documentaries convey to us the fragile reality of adolescence (“Girlhood,” 2021), the importance of not remaining silent (“#WithSofia”), the power of motherhood (“Mommies,” 2023), the universe of fast, pop consumption (“Dimitris Skyllas: AFTERPOP,” 2022), the human desire to fly (“Birds or How to be one,” 2020). Everyday heroes and heroines from every corner of the world – from Athens to Chile and from New York to Istanbul – speak unafraid and take a stand on issues of the “here and now.” Through the power of the image and the truth of the documentary form, we are being transported, feel, question, and finally come closer to our own reality and the world we choose to live in.
Photo: Motion Team
The Onassis Film Award 2023 goes to the “Holy Human Angel” documentary by Angeliki Aristomenopoulou.
Onassis Culture is furthering the establishment of the Onassis Film Awards at the Agora Department of the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival. The award is given every year to one of the Greek projects that participate in Agora, supporting the development of independent Greek cinema. This year, the Onassis Film Award is being given to the “Holy Human Angel” documentary by Angeliki Aristomenopoulou, a touching story about a courageous person and the acceptance by a tremendously supportive family that fills you with hope. It is a documentary ripe with atmospheric, joyous, and emotionally loaded images. “Holy Human Angel” is a flawless and accomplished film proposal that we want to enjoy soon in a cinema theater.
The Onassis Film Award arrives as a natural continuation of the long-running relationship between the Onassis Foundation and the Thessaloniki International Film Festival. In 2019, the Foundation supported the “Meet the Future” initiative, where 15 female and male directors had the opportunity to present their work to the public. One of the participants, Konstantina Kotzamani, became an Onassis Fellow and will travel to Los Angeles in 2023, to meet up close the film community in the United States. In addition to its support towards young filmmakers, the Onassis Foundation, in collaboration with Disabled Artists Movement, has ensured accessibility to all screenings of the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, through “Cinemability” initiative.
Throughout the years, Onassis Culture collaborates with the most eminent film festivals in Greece and internationally. In 2021, it established the Onassis Film Awards, in collaboration with the Drama International Short-film Festival, the Athens International Film Festival, and the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, highlighting new voices in cinema that deserve to be heard.
