Scar Tissue: Souvenirs from the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival 2026
I saw a total of ten films in my five days at the 28th Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival (see some notes below), which ran from the 5th to the 15th of March 2026. My visit spanned the final part of the festival, and as usual I concentrated on screenings in the atmospheric, one-screen neighbourhood cinema, the Makedonikon, located a short walk from the White Tower which has been the city’s most prominent landmark for centuries (probably since the late 1400s). [The Makedonikon is also handy for one of my favourite eateries in this food-oriented metropolis, a humble but very reliably family-run spot named Το Έτση (To Étsi), tucked away down a little street named Nikiforou Foka (number 2). Ask for the souvlaki with all the spices. Wash it down with a drink at the much fancier, but also OK, Zithos Dore just around the corner, with view of the White Tower.]
In fact, it was only on the final night that I saw films elsewhere, catching two horror-related documentaries in the Toni Marketaki screen, located in the warehouse complex that is the main hub of the city’s film-festivals. I’ve been coming to such events in Thessaloniki (the fiction-oriented one in November, the documentary-oriented one in March) since the spring of 2022; until that point (aged 51!) I’d somehow never once set foot in Greece. I’ve made up for it since; TIDF 2026 was my ninth time. And each morning when I’m in Thessaloniki (weather permitting) I run past the White Tower twice: once on the outward leg of my run, once on the return.
Depending on how far along the waterfront I go, the total run comes to between 35 and 65 minutes, the latter if I make it all the way round the curve of the bay to the blocky brownish edifice that houses the Thessaloniki Concert Hall, a relatively new addition to the skyline (it opened in 2000). From my hotel (this time, as often before, the Luxembourg) it’s around 4.5km each way, or 2.8 miles, and I time my departure so that I’m back before breakfast finishes serving at 10am. I start and the run with stretches on the seafront, looking across to where Mount Olympus is visible on the clearest days.
This time I managed to do the run on four of the five mornings I was in town, though on only one day (Friday the 13th) did I make it all the way to the Concert Hall and back, doing so in 54 minutes. On the last morning I encountered a jolting mishap: on the return leg I stumbled and fell, and had the clumsiness to do so on an especially rough piece of terrain. Result: various scratches including a gouge into my elbow that bled quite profusely. Luckily, a local woman came to my assistance and while I assured her I was essentially OK, I did use her bottle of water to wash out the wound, which I did more thoroughly using a tap a few yards away. The golden rule of falling when running: get up, get going, don’t make a fuss! (unless bones are broken…)
I resumed my run at a slightly more sedate pace, which I maintained all the way back to the hotel where I applied antiseptic wipes and then some sticking-plasters. These only partially did the trick, however; on the 7-hour bus ride to Athens later that day (departing from Thessaloniki’s spectacular dome of a long-distance bus station) I noticed some “leakage.” It’s now three weeks later and there are still some vestigial scabs on my elbow; there will be some scarring there also, but nothing too dramatic. And if asked, I have a little story to tell.
I worked out that I’ve fallen once a year for the last three years (maybe a ratio to be expected; I usually run 3 or 4 times a week): I cut my chin open on a manhole cover in Vienna in January 2025, yielding a lot of blood but causing no lasting ill-effects. And now I have a permanent souvenir of Thessaloniki! And two more: the small “vintage” black-and-white photos which appear at the top and bottom of this article, purchased from a bric-a-brac shop in the city on the Saturday morning. I know nothing about either apart from the fact that the top one was purchased in 1962, according to an inscription (in Greek) on the back. Where’s that young fellow now?
Neil Young
6th April 2026
postscript: 2pm on 7th April 2026.
An hour or so ago I fell over AGAIN, this time in Vienna, this time when walking (tripped over a bike-rack). And managed to reopen the elbow wound! (though not too seriously.) Jinxed!
Thursday 12th, Makedonikon: The Sibyls (Le Sibille. Lina Mangiacapre, 1980, 26min) + Witchhammer (Kladivo na čarodějnice. Otakar Vávra, 1970, 107min)
Friday 13th, Makedonikon: “The Disease That Has No Cure”: Panos Koutrouboussis (Giorgios & Iraklis Mavroidis, 1982, 23min) + Follow Them (Evi Kalogiropoulou, 2020, 25min) + Koursal (Nikos Theodosiou, 2006, 62min).
Koursal a TV-style but informative and warm documentary about old cinemas in Thessaloniki, spurred by the director encountering mention of the “Koursal,” a floating picture-house which apparently showed films for a few weeks one summer in the 1920s. Not much information exists about this enterprise, and by the end we’re not much the wiser. Thankfully the picture wanders into various tangents, and along the way includes glimpses of Thessaloniki at various epochs over the last century: the “contemporary” footage shot in the mid-2000s captures the thick fogs which were long associated with the area, but which now are more a matter of memory…
Saturday 14th, Makedonikon: Before She Forgets Heliopolis (Valentin Noujaïm, 2018, 22min) + Pacific Club (Valentin Noujaïm, 2023, 17min) + Opera Omnia (Valentin Noujaïm, 2025, 12min)
Sunday 15th, Tonia Marketaki: Boorman and the Devil (David Kittredge, 2025, 112min)
Having contributed extensively to a 96-minute podcast on Exorcist II: The Heretic in 2023, in which I staunchly defend the picture and explain why it’s better than the first one, I’m probably the ideal audience for this exhaustive, entertaining and fair-handed account of the film’s problematic production and disastrous reception. It’s a tellyish enterprise (complete with larkishly wacky animations and crashingly intrusive score) but heart is in the right place, and the squarely Boormanophile final proves unexpectedly moving—not least because it finds the time to trace his post-Heretic comeback via the magnificent Excalibur.
[side-note: Boorman and the Devil has a terrific poster, seen above, designed by Yen Tan.]
Sunday 15th, Tonia Marketaki: Black Zombie (Maya Annik Bedward, 2026, 90min)
Dense, ethnographic, tellyish account of zombie/voodoo (vodou) matters linking Haiti and Hollywood has admirable intentions and is studded with fascinating material. But how can such a film not once mention the name of Bela Lugosi, star of the first ever zombie picture White Zombie, despite him popping up on screen every few minutes? And not only is I Walked With a Zombie clumsily misrepresented, the filmmakers can’t even get the title right (also, no trace of the last pre-Romero zombie picture, Hammer’s 1966 Cornish classic The Plague of the Zombies …) Then again, they don’t seem to have read (or even heard of) Ishmael Reed’s amazing (and very apropos) novel Mumbo Jumbo….
