National Competition 2025
48th Drama International Short Film Festival
Ηead Programmer: Yorgos Angelopoulos
Yorgos Angelopoulos graduated with a degree in Directing from the School of Film of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He then got a scholarship for a master’s degree on Screenwriting at the University of The Arts London. In 2017 he began working on the Production and Development Directorate of the Greek Film Centre where he was promoted to Director in 2020. He introduced new funding program regulations designed to support emerging professionals and foster inclusivity in short filmmaking. During his term, the evaluation mechanism was established with a registry of readers and clear artistic criteria, leading to the funding of hundreds of film projects at the writing, development, and production stages. He has been active in film education and has participated in the creation and development of the Olympia Effect, a script development workshop for children and teens by the Olympia International Film Festival for Children and Young People. He has served as an expert for Creative Europe MEDIA Desk and has been a script consultant for short and feature films. His first short film as screenwriter-director Goldfish (2017) premiered in BFI Flare and became part of the British Council’s International Campaign for Equality and Human Rights (#5filmsforfreedom). In 2025 he completed his second short film.
If Drama International Short Film Festival had a heart, it would undoubtedly beat to the rhythm of the National Competition. It is the section where we first met some of our now favourite Greek filmmakers. The section we will turn to in order to grasp what was unfolding in the country and the world at the time a film was being made. The things we could relate to, what frightened us, what sparked our curiosity, even things we were not yet ready to understand.
This year’s edition is once again a reflection of the imprint of our era. Films driven by an urge to escape, both mental and imaginative journeys, portray worlds molded unlike our own, illustrating unfamiliar characters who offer their own take on reality and the filmmakers’ longing to transcend it or to reimagine it on their own terms. High expectations from family and society lead, inevitably, to disappointment. Young protagonists are on the rise, giving a strong boost to the virtually nonexistent genre of youth cinema in Greece. Having put diversity centre stage in previous years, filmmakers now explore new ways of reinventing queer narratives, this time across supernatural and mythological lead characters. Directors who set their stories in contemporary Greece often aim to criticise and expose the nation’s systemic plagues: corruption, intolerance, submission to capital, and the erosion of values. Alongside the ever-relevant themes of memory, its preservation or reconfiguration, as well as the recurring motif of grief, these films seem to suggest that the best days are behind us.
And yet. More often than not, the characters choose not to surrender. Even when everything is against them, they move toward the light. They persist, they try, they fight back. Just like filmmakers themselves. Let us hope they inspire us to do the same.
Yorgos Angelopoulos
Head Programmer, National Competition Section
- Τhe Circles of Ro, Μyrto Apostolidou
- Mermaids, Lida Vartzioti – Dimitris Tsakaleas
- 3 cm of Complexity, Anna Vasof
- 100 years ahead, Michael Gigintis
- MITCH, Gevi Dimitrakopoulou
- Roots, Konstantinos Doxiadis
- Noi, Neritan Zinxhiria
- Fouetté, Dimitris Zouras
- He Who Once Was, Kostis Theodosopoulos
- The Outsider, Eftychia Iosifidou
- The patient 1789, Eirini Karagkiozidou
- Cold?, Andreas Kontopoulos
- Magdalena Hausen: Frozen Time, Yannis Karpouzis
- Beware of the Southern stars, Christos Karteris
- Hopepunk, Vasiliki Lazaridou
- Performer, Yannis Beretsos
- The wolves return, Stelios Moraitidis
- Requiem in Salt, Sylvia Nicolaides – Nicolas Iordanou
- A Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Natassa Xydi
- PLANETS, Fili Olsefski
- The day we became heroes, Selini Papageorgiou
- You know the drill, Manos Papadakis
- Dust to dust, Dimitris Papathanasis
- Pirateland, Stavros Petropoulos
- LUDYAS, Akis Polizos
- GIVE ME 5 MINUTES, Marthilia Svarna
- Carcass, Makis Sebos
- ΝΙΚΗ, Savvas Stavrou
- Mikro Soma, Jon Simvonis
- AVANTAZ, Christos Tatsis
- Last Tropics, Thanasis Trouboukis
- Places Called Home, Dimitris Tsalapatis
- Nothing and everything, Lia Tsalta
- Fuit, Alexandros Chantzis
- Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World, Kevin Walker, Irene Zahariadis
The posters of the films in the National Competition Program
