This year’s opening film is ‘Where Shadows Rest,’ a documentary by Marianna Economou, on the controversial efforts of a septuagenarian diver to do something with the wrecked ships lying abandoned off the West Attica town of Elefsina. [Anemon Productions]
The Beyond Borders international documentary festival celebrated its 10th anniversary last year with its most successful edition, a rich program with a record number of entries, important screenings and interesting parallel events.
Little did the event’s organizers imagine that just a year later, the event on the tiny southeastern Aegean island of Kastellorizo would be hanging by a thread.
“First, our main sponsors – Public Power Corporation and the National Bank of Greece – withdrew their support. That was followed by the indifferent stance of the Ministry of Culture, the Regional Authority of the Southern Aegean and the Ministry of Tourism, institutions that had supported the festival in previous years,” the artistic director of Beyond Borders, Irini Sarioglou, told a press conference in Athens earlier this week.
As a result of these shifts, the festival’s budget has shrunk from €500,000 last year to just €70,000 – of which €46,000 comes from the Hellenic Film and Audiovisual Center and the rest from the General Secretariat for Greeks Abroad – putting the festival’s future at stake.
