Against all odds, and especially the current financial status of our country, we decided to materialize the 5th edition of TiSFF, even if we had to reduce rather drastically the time available for screenings. This was what hurt us the most as a good number of beautiful films submitted were not screened due to the limited hours available.

We sincerely apologize to all directors that understandably feel disappointed that there was no time to screen their films, even if initially selected for screening !

We decided, with great difficulty, on the final list of out TiSFF awards as shown in the attachment. These final selections were made for films that indeed make an unforgettable impact and contain important messages on human, social and political issues.

TiSFF is a festival that focuses on fiction films with emphasis on cinematic quality and the originality of the scenario. We are sure that these films are destined to receive numerous awards in major festivals world-wide, even reaching the OSCAR nominations. Two of our 2010 films made it to the OSCARS, we hope for at least 3-4 of our 2011 films will reach that in 2012. The list of awarded films is of course shown in alphabetical order.

We thank all the participating directors, our sponsors, and especially the true cinephiles that make our festival a success every year.

On behalf of all of us at TiSFF, thank you again and we hope to have all of you directors and cinephiles with us again in 2012 !

Yiannis Zachopoulos
TiSFF director

04  THESS  INTERNATIONAL SHORT  FILM  FESTIVAL

The 4th THESS INTERNATIONAL SHORT FILM of Thessaloniki raised once again the level of quality short film cinema presenting impressive short films from all over the world. From the 388 fillms of 28 countries submitted, 134 were selected, and these were continuously applauded by the cinephiles attending the festival.

In addition to the exceptional individual submissions like BUTTERFLY CIRCUS, BANQUET UNDER WATER, ONA, AND ME FOR MYSELF, VOYAGE AUTOUR DE MA CHAMBRE, VAHETUS, FLAT LOVE and many more award-winning films (Oscar, Cezar, etc.) , TISFF also presented special screenings dedicated to BRUSSELS FILM FESTIVAL, uniFRANCE, SEXY INTERNATIONAL PARIS FILM FESTIVAL, ATHENS INTERNATIONAL SHORT FILM FESTIVAL PSAROKOKALO, KIMUAK, ENCOUNTERS and MADRID en CORTO/MAILUKI.

Outstanding greek director Yiannis Economidis and top greek actor Vangelis Mourikis honored TISFF once again, having an extremely interesting and challenging 2-hour discussion with the public about how they see greek cinema, the greek realities as shown in his films, and his new film KNIFER . Also, Kyriakos Hadjimihailidis, director,producer and founder of “t-short”, the man who has done the most for short films in Greece, talked about their importance in greek cinema and not only.

After long discussions, the committee and selected directors and cinephiles, TISFF announced the 12 international entries and 12 greek films that were selected for our Cinematic Achievement Awards . TISFF’s philosophy is in disagreement with the usual 1st ,2nd award system, and considers more “fair” awarding the 10-12 films that are indeed cinematic achievements, although ALL the films screened this year were enthusiastically applauded by the audience.

We would like to express our gratitude to the city’s DIMITRIA Arts Festival, our sponsors, our partner festivals, and above all the participating directors and cinephiles that make our festival possible.

CINEMATIC  ACHIEVEMENT  AWARDS international