The Municipality of Rhodes+ Image & Environment Society
present
e c o f i l m s
Rhodes International Film and Visual Arts Festival
21-26 June 2005
Rhodes Hellas

with the support of the
Prefecture of the Dodecanese
the Greek Ministry of Culture
the Rhodes Cultural Organisation
the National and Municipal Theatre of Rhodes
the Rhodes Cinema Society
The RamsarConvention and its Mediterranean Wetlands Initiative – MedWet

Running into its third year, the Festival is gradually turning the port town of Rhodes, from a well known holiday resort to a cradle for film and arts related to the environment. Protected by UNESCO for its rich heritage, the town becomes host to a diverse mix of professionals from the film, arts and media and of the environment sector who meet for o­ne week to exchange ideas, build new partnerships and communicate their work to the local community.

Jury Committees

Members of the Jury Committees for Ecofilms are:

Mr Miro Purivatra, Director of the Sarajevo Festival

Mr Gunnar Bergdahl, Former Director of the Goeteborg Festival

Mr Rik Vermeulen, Directof of the Transylvania Festival, collaborating with the Rotterdam Festival

Mr Marco Gaudenzi, architect, town planner and stage designer

Mr Mario Cenni, biologist

Mr DavidPritchard, BirdlifeInternational

Mr Alekos Arplias, former Director of the regional Radio networks of the Greek national broadcasting corporation ERA

Mr Stefano Capizzi, Artistic director of CinemAmbiente Festival, Torino

festivalcomponents

Screenings and competitions

The festival will include a competition for international short and long feature films, as well as a competition for Greek films. In addition the Festival includes a special screening o­n social documentary in areas such as ‘Water’ , ‘Nuclear Power’, ‘Employment’, ‘China’.

A significant part of the material for the special screenings is provided by the Italian Cinema Institute and the Istituto Luce, both partners of the Ecofilms Festival. Through this partnership the records of the historic material connected to the Greek-Italian strife over Rhodes and the Dodecanese, dating from the Second World War, are being gradually released.

Environmental forum

The Festival aims to host an informal meeting with the participation of the European Commissioner of the Environment, Mr Stavros Dimas, the Minister of the Environment of Greece as well as other Mediterranean / Balkan countries, representatives of international environmental organizations including the Ramsar Convention for the protection of wetlands and its Mediterranean Wetlands Initiative, United Nations Environment Program Mediterranean Action Plan.

The purpose of the meeting would be to discuss the issue of international collaboration for the wise use of natural resources and water in particular, in the context of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership and the integration of Balkan states into the European Union.

      Education

Based o­n the success of the screenings of Ecocinema films to school children in 2004, this year Ecofilms plans to launch a seminar teaching school children of the island of Rhodes how to actively watch and interpret audio-visual work. A section o­n the website of ecofilms moreover is specially devoted to carrying the teaching aids, designed for the purpose of the Ecofilms education seminar.

Communicating and diffusing the films

Based o­n the expressed interest among others by cultural organisations and public bodies to carry out post-Festival screenings with films screened at Ecofilms, the Festival is considering working to ensure that its material reaches all interested audiences beyond Rhodes. For this purpose, the Festival seeks to engage in the production of ‘kits’ comprising of DVD versions of the Festival material.

sample of shortlisted films

Over 100 films are selected for Ecofilms 2005, some of them are:

Kiran Over Mongolia, Joseph Spaid (US)

Connection, Dato Janelidze (Russia)

Orgasm, Pablo Oliverio (Argentina)

Sound of footsteps o­n the pavement, Reine Mitri, (Lebanon)

Between two banks, Nujoom Alghanem (United Arab Emirates)

An ordinary Day, Ibrahim Αlmulla, (United Arab Emirates)

A Cry for Madiom, ErezBarzilay(Canada)

Desire and Clay, BazDinkaShamoun (Iraq)

Made in China, Dalia Marwan Al Kury (Jordan)

The River, George Ovashvili(Georgia)

The Big Question, Francesco Cabras (Italy)

Czech Dream, Irena Taskovski (CzechRepublic)

Stroke, Katarina Peters (Gremany)

MONTE GRANDE, Franz Reichle (Switzerland)

Out of the city, Tomas Vorel(CzechRepublic)

Child in Time, Kai Nordberg(Finland)

A Flood in Baath country, Omar Amiralay (Syria)

Rhodes

The Mediaeval port town of Rhodes – a UNESCO protected site

The Order of St John of Jerusalem occupied Rhodes from 1309 to 1523 and set about transforming the city into a stronghold. It subsequently came under Turkish and Italian rule.

With the Palace of the Grand Masters, the Great Hospital and the Street of the Knights, the Upper Town is o­ne of the most beautiful urban ensembles of the Gothic period.

In the LowerTown, Gothic architecture coexists with mosques, public baths and other buildings dating from the Ottoman period.

Updated on 7/12/2005 1:14:15 PM.