How Thessaloniki’s Industry Arm Stays True to Its Mission to ‘Nurture Talents’ and Remains a Vital Launching Pad for Region’s Filmmakers

As the Thessaloniki Film Festival’s industry arm, Agora, celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, organizers are looking to maintain the right balance for an event that continues to grow in stature while retaining its carefully curated, almost intimate feel.

To that end, industry head Angeliki Vergou — an Agora veteran who assumed her current post in 2022 — is pragmatic in her approach to the Thessaloniki event and where it fits into the broader marketplace. While several thousand exhibitors and industry professionals will descend on Las Vegas next week for a whirlwind, new-look AFM, Vergou stresses that the Agora is determined to maintain its “friendly,” personal approach.

“We really want to keep having this scale of a market — not too big, but the right amount of professionals coming and meeting with each other,” Vergou tells Variety. “Our specialty is to nurture talents and offer them their first experience in a market. An experience that feels safe and comfortable to open up and…be able to express themselves freely.”

In that sense, the Agora functions as a stepping stone for emerging filmmakers and industry professionals from the region who are perhaps yet to tackle their first Cannes Marché or EFM. “The whole point is for us to be able to embrace them and help them forward to then open up to bigger markets and a bigger network,” she says.

One area that’s proven to be a successful launching pad is the Agora’s Crossroads Co-Production Forum, which in recent years has supported titles including Tereza Nvotová’s Locarno Golden Leopard winner “Nightsiren,” Elene Naveriani’s Cannes Directors’ Fortnight selection “Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry” and Amjad Al Rasheed’s Cannes Critics’ Week player “Inshallah a Boy.”

The forum returns this year with 15 projects from 17 countries, including a new feature from Romanian multi-hyphenate Adrian Sitaru (“Fixer”), as well as sophomore films from Kosovo’s Kaltrina Krasniqi (“Vera Dreams of the Sea”), Greece’s Yorgos Goussis (“Magnetic Fields”) and Lebanon’s Ahmad Ghossein (Venice Critics’ Week winner “All This Victory”).

Nine films from 15 countries in Southeastern Europe and the Mediterranean region, meanwhile, will be showcased in the works-in-progress section, among them the latest from prolific Greek multi-hyphenate Alexandros Voulgaris (“Winona”) and the feature debut of rising Bulgarian filmmaker Hristo Simeonov. Recent participants include Dimitris Nakos’ “Meat” (pictured), which premiered at Toronto and is competing in this year’s Thessaloniki fest.

A recent addition to the industry program that’s undoubtedly gaining momentum is Agora Series, a two-day event that was launched in 2022 to provide a platform for TV creatives in Greece and the broader Southeastern European and Mediterranean region.

This year’s event is headlined by “Unorthodox” creator Anna Winger, who will appear in conversation with Rachel Eggebeen of Amplify Pictures (“Fleabag,” “100 Foot Wave”) to discuss the work of the showrunner in TV production and explore how a role created by the U.S. television biz can be adapted within the European context. The session will be held in partnership with the Greek non-profit creative incubator Oxbelly.

Also on the agenda is a case study of the upcoming drama series “Kabul,” a show based on the fall of the Afghan capital in August 2021 that was entirely filmed in Athens, which will highlight the opportunities and challenges for TV co-production in Europe. Film and TV consultant Tatjana Samopjan, meanwhile, will offer a presentation that will focus on the art of storytelling in the age of AI.

Taking place in Greece’s second city, sitting at a historical crossroads of East and West, Thessaloniki’s Agora functions first and foremost as a meeting point — a place where ideas can be exchanged and all-important partnerships forged that can help filmmakers get their projects off the ground.

Now more than ever, says Vergou, amid unprecedented disruptions to the global industry, such collaborations are vital. “The environment is changing. This is why we also want to provide other opportunities to projects and open them up to more potential partners,” she says, especially those “that make sense for each project.”

The task, she admits, is “challenging” — and growing more so year by year, as world events continue to contribute to a climate of uncertainty. Yet Vergou is steadfast that the role of markets like Thessaloniki’s Agora remain as vital as ever, describing them as the “core of our existence” as filmmakers and industry professionals.

“The distributors, the film festival programmers, the sales agents, the creators, the producers: they all meet at markets,” she says, “in order to network, to exchange ideas, to sign contracts. Markets are what bring people and creators and film professionals together.”

As the Agora looks ahead to the future, Vergou points to initiatives like Bridge to the North — a program launched last year that hosts a different guest country from either Scandinavia or the Baltics — as indicative of how the industry event plans to evolve by constantly tinkering with a time-tested formula while broadening its horizons.

“This is a new challenge for us. We want to connect with regions that don’t usually attend Thessaloniki. This is a wonderful opportunity for them to discover the festival, the market, the local talent and the regional talent,” she says.

“We keep on uniting the regional industries and bringing European partners to meet with the regional talents and helping them to connect and to work together. Mostly our goal is to keep on keeping on with the work that we do.”

The Thessaloniki Film Festival runs Oct. 31 – Nov. 10.