Drama Film Lab

Absence and Presence

I first set foot in the city of Drama on 5 November 1990. My first short film, Absent, was scheduled to be the opening film in the Festival programme that day. It was raining, it was cold, and the sky was heavy. I felt awkward and anxious — it was my first time at a Festival. It also happened to be my birthday, both literally and metaphorically: I was born on that day, which also marked my birth as a filmmaker. Despite the mishaps that occurred during that afternoon screening, I survived the “traumatic” experience. I grew deeply fond of the Festival and, from that year until 2010, I was there every year, marking only four absences. My second short film The American (1993) and especially my third, A Shining Sun (2000), were well received, earned awards, and offered me some beautiful and powerful emotions. Over the years, whether as a spectator or as the Coordinator of ERT’s “Microfilm” programme, I witnessed the Festival’s coming of age and the rise in quality of Greek films, which could now stand confidently alongside international ones. You could see films made by young filmmakers who clearly knew the tools of cinema. Many of them were cinematic gems, films with a personal voice and vision. There were also films that displayed technical excellence and academic proficiency, but lacked soul. You couldn’t grasp the filmmaker’s true motivation or personal urgency behind the making of the film. Yet right next to them, you would discover some still-inexperienced filmmakers who might have fumbled the grammar of cinematic language but managed, through sheer personal drive, to weave together raw materials and create films with meaning. These very materials — passion, curiosity, thirst for learning, risktaking, the personal need to tell a story — are precisely what I attempted to uncover and nurture in the amateur filmmakers of Drama who participated in the 2025 Drama Film Lab, organised by the Cultural Organisation of the Drama International Short Film Festival. I may have started my journey in Drama 35 years ago with the film Absent, but this time I was Present! to the honourable invitation extended by the organisers. Together with the participants, we worked for months and succeeded in completing films infused with the joy of creation. For most of them, these were their very first attempts, whereas many of them had never studied Cinema. Beyond the filmmakers themselves, who come from Drama, the films also feature the city and the surrounding countryside, with fragments of local history woven into their narratives. The actors, whether amateur or professional, are all local residents. These are films that, alongside the Greek and international entries of the Festival, enrich the gaze of the audience, inviting viewers to discover the people and the face of Drama: a city that declares itself present not just in attendance, but also in creativity.

Vassilis Loules
Film Director