About the Festival
Positively Different, Short Film Festival, 19 - 28 Μarch 2021, Athens
Gender, sexuality, race, class, ethnicity, religion, able-bodiness – are determinants of our present and future, life prospects and obstructions. PDSFF2021 focuses on their intersections and follows stories of characters, individuals and communities that experience oppression due to identities they carry. Shedding light on life paths of “others” – often through realism and humor and other times through abstraction and experimentation – the festival aims to give space to co-creation, networking and shaping of collective claims. Our aspiration is to turn PDSFF into an institution for promoting intersecting identities and raising awareness on issues of discrimination and oppression experienced by individuals and groups that fall through the cracks of representation in contemporary polities.
Produced by: Inter Alia
Announcements
Positively Different Short Film Festival 2022 | Call for Volunteers
Positively Different Short Film Festival 2022 calls out to all film enthusiasts for yet another exciting year to come:
Will you help us narrow down the official festival selection for 2022?
Complete the form linked & join the PDSFF22 festival team!
Positively Different Short Film Festival seeks to explore intersecting discriminations; the festival team is particularly interested in providing a space for otherwise ‘invisible’ stories to be articulated and heard; stories of individuals and communities facing marginalisation due to the identities they carry.
What you will gain by volunteering with our team:
- Training on film critique and the subject of intersectionality
- Collaboration with an international team of committed and motivated people
- All access to screenings and side events
What we’re looking for:
- Cinema related experience (professional, educational, volunteer)
- Interest in the topic of intersectionality
- Sense of responsibility
Call for submissions #PDSFF22
Positively Different Short Film Festival, 11 – 13 March 2022, Athens
Two years into a narrower life, filmmakers keep inspiring us with their resilience. They exemplify that power and imagination can’t be confined. PDSFF is a time of appreciation and celebration of this lot.
We invite all filmmakers, documentarists, visual content creators, students and emerging artists to submit their shorts from the fields of fiction, documentary and visual arts. We are particularly interested in the topic of intersectionality; in the stories of communities and individuals that, due to their intersecting identities and complex experiences regarding their gender, sexuality, race, class, ethnicity, religion and able-bodiedness, remain unseen.
Positively Different Short Film Festival focuses on the multiple facets of oppression and aspires to further creative works, cultural networks and political causes from and about the ‘invisibles’ of modern societies. Our team and audience are charmed by aesthetic coherence as much as they are excited by robustness, simplicity and tacitness. Shorts that reflect bold visions, grounded sophistication, original viewpoints and personal urgency are, essentially, what we look for.
The festival will feature a curated catalogue of approximately 35 short films that will be screened at TRIANON cinema in Athens from March 11 to13 competing for 3 prizes – Best Film Award, Audience Award, Best Greek Production. Concerts, workshops and masterclasses, special screenings, poetry-slam sessions and discussions will assemble an intense three-day celebration of diversity and togetherness.
The festival will support all finalists to join in person.
Early bird submission deadline: 20/09 (free)
Regural submission deadline: 31/10
PDSFF21 x Zagoriwood | Κato Pedina
For the second time around, PDSFF prepared and showcased a hand-picked selection of this year’s award winners (Best Film Award, Audience Award and Best Greek Production) and Honorable Mentions.
In the breathtaking scenery of Epirus and Zagorochoria, we were glad to collaborate again with ‘Zagoriwood’ and their exceptional team. Screenings, workshops and multi-awarded films brought us together at Kato Pedina to chat and exchange ideas and best practices.
Until next time,
Thank you Zagjoriwood
PDSFF21 x Exarcheia Square | Plateia Exarcheion
Time and space in our cities is narrowing; a consequence of a lifestyle pattern imposed by few and experienced as an alienating reality by the rest. Positively Different Short Film Festival was created to enable people voice themselves against oppressive structures, enhance their agency and defend the public sphere.
Our route intersected with the struggle to stop the construction of a metro station on Exarchia square and to maintain it as one of the few free public spaces of central Athens. Exarchia square except from a political symbol, is also a field of the community’s earthly struggle for quality time and space. And, as such, it should be defended by all.
On Friday, July 23, we shared some of the PDSFF films on the topics of public space and displacement, fostering reflection on what is at stake:
Between the hill and the marsh, 19′, Spain
Bladgoud, 26′, Netherlands
Suicide Candidates, 18′, Morocco
At the schoolyard, 10′, Greece
Reonghee, 15′, Republic of Korea
Positively Different Short Film Festival Travels to France
On the occasion of the international meeting on European values and the value of Europe that took place in Loche, France, organised by Europe en Berry Tourraine, PDSFF conveyed a message of equality, empathy and solidarity. An audience of great diversity, adolescents, youngsters and elderly people from 20 European countries, enjoyed a special screening from the 2020 and 2021 collection, offering an intersectional view on contemporary challenges of European communities. Able-bodiness, sexuality, age, refugeeship and mental health were among the issues touched through fiction and documentary movies from across Europe. The screening included the following movies:
Happy, 8’, Greece
At Night I Dream, 16’, Luxemburg
At the Schoolyard, 10’, Greece
I See in the Dark, 16’, Slovenia
Down the Wire, 14’, Italy
PDSFF21 x CineParko | Autodiaxeirizomeno Parko Navarinou
The curatorial team of Positively Different Short Film Festival presents this year’s winners and audience picks in open air pop-up screenings in some of our favorites city spots during July.
Last Wednesday we gathered at CineParko | Autodiaxeirizomeno Parko Navarinou and watched some of our feel good shorts along with some of the Greek directors. Thanks for the full house!
Each screening comes with a differentiated program seeking to narrate a specific storyline. Catch a screening if in Athens and come say hi!
Next available date:
23/07 @Plateia Exarcheion
PDSFF21 x Summer Screening | ΤΡΙΑΝΟΝ Οpen Air
Last Sunday, we had the pleasure to screen some of this year’s audience favorites, award-winning shorts and honorable mentions to the festival’s main venue, TΡΙΑΝΟΝ.
The editorial team of PDSFF21 presented two curated sets in PDSFF21 first open air session in Athens and facilitated a Q&A discussion with the invited directors on filming from a position of privilege, underlying motives and on creating safe spaces for less represented communities.
Catch a screening if still in Athens and come say hi!
Next available dates:
14/07 @CineParko | Autodiaxeirizomeno Parko Navarinou
23/07 @Plateia Exarcheion
Positively Different Short Film Festival at ΤΡΙΑΝΟΝ Open Air
Positively Different Short Film Festival throws its first summer screening for 2021. This year’s winners and honorable mentions will be presented in two sessions along with some of the curatiorial team’s favorites. The films will be projected with greek subtitles.
The screening will take place at the 4th of July at the festival’s main venue yet summer-ish;
Rendez-vous at TΡΙΑΝΟΝ Open air ✨
Tickets will be available at the box office from 3 euros/slot or 5 euros for the whole day.
Submissions for 2021 are now open!
Positively Different Short Film Festival joins Zagoriwood
Up in the mountains of Epirus under a magical August full-moon, PDSFF held a screening of selected movies from the 2020 catalogue in the framework of Zagoriwood film festival and workshop. Along with local citizens and film students, in the main square of Kato Pedina, films about intersecting stories and shared struggles against oppression were screened. The discussions that followed with participants and teachers in the workshop were enlightening as to how to make the upcoming festival even better.
Big thanks to Zagoriwood organising team for the invitation and to the local community of Kato Pedina for the warm welcome. See you next year!
Positively Different Short Film Festival at CinePark
Pre-festival screening Photos
PDSFF was introduced to the audience with its first pre-festival event on Friday, 10th of January, almost a month prior to its official opening at the 13rd of February at Trianon. The attendees had the chance to discuss the festival’s core thematics and to participate in crafting the official 2020 festival selection by selecting amongst the semi-finalists.
Stay tuned!
Awards
Positively Different Short Film Festival Best Film Award
Positively Different Short Film Festival Audience Award
Positively Different Short Film Festival Best Greek Production
This is Right; Zak Life and After
Rouge
This is Right; Zak Life and After
Honorable Mentions
My Other Son
The Daring Young Girl on the flying Trapeze
Aderfi
Announcement of PDSFF 2021 awards
Programme
At a glance...
This is Right; Zak Life and After (2020)
Ukde (2019)
Let there be Colour (2020)
As if Underwater (2020)
The Stamp (2019)
Blooming Cycles (2020)
Saigon Sentinel (2020)
Rosa Kairo (2020)
At the Schoolyard (2020)
Coal (2019)
Aderfi (2019)
Rouge (2019)
Between the Hill and the Marsh (2020)
We are good (2020)
My Gypsy Road (2020)
God’s Daughter Dances (2020)
Alba (2018)
I see in the Dark (2019)
Dünyam (2019)
Saucy Toinha (2020)
Baring Iran (2020)
Madonna f64.0 (2020)
Mermaid (2019)
Happy (2020)
At Night, I Dream (2020)
A Day in the Life of a Boy (2020)
Beautiful Cure (2019)
My Other Son (2019)
The Daring Young Girl on the flying Trapeze (2020)
Work for Him (2020)
Presence (2019)
The Roars That Keep the Storm Away (2019)
Marie (2019)
Pivot (2020)
Overload (2019)
quite easy (2019)
Trick or Treat (2020)
I Never Picked Cotton (2019)
The Music Video (2020)
Teen Horses (2019)
Videos
Positively Different Short Film Festival 2020
Positively Different 2020 Aftermovie
Positively Different 2020 Trailer
Positively Different 2020 Teaser
Meet the Team
Organisers
Volunteers
Jury Committee
Maria Giovanna Vagenas
After having studied Philosophy in Genova and comparative literature in Vienna, she did a post graduate in Cinema Studies at La Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris. She has been working for more than a decade for the Viennale as program consultant, curating special programs and retrospectives. She collaborates with the Berlinale, IFFR Rotterdam, the Italian Film Festival in Annecy and is a programmer for the FFDUL of Lugano. She has been a project reader for the Doha Film Institute. Besides some academic publications for the Presses de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, she has been a film critic for the daily South China Morning Post (Hong Kong) for several years. She presently writes for Senses of Cinema and Schermaglie.it
Yannis Kantea-Papadopoulos
He was born in Athens in 1994. Since he can remember, he has watched movies and listened to music, with the necessary breaks for the games of PAO and Liverpool. He started writing for cinema on Toutestein and Reel.gr, while maintaining a radio show on Poplie Radio and making his first attempts behind the camera directing and participating in short films. Before graduating from Panteion University’s Department of Political Science and History, he was a member of the production team of the Zagoriwood Film Festival. In recent years he has been writing for cinema in Athinorama, while collaborating with other publications. He has also collaborated with the Thessaloniki Film Festival and the Drama Short Film Festival. He is a member of the Hellenic Film Academy and the Panhellenic Association of Film Critics.
Konstantinos Aivaliotis
Konstantinos Aivaliotis holds a PhD in Social Anthropology with a special research interest in Visual Anthropology and Multimedia Ethnography, Documentary and Ethnographic Cinema and Film Festivals as cultural organizations and the role of the film industry in education. He is a graduate of the Department of Social Policy and Social Anthropology at Panteion University (Specialization in Social Anthropology) and holds two postgraduate degrees in Educational Anthropology (Rouen University, France) and Visual Anthropology (England, Goldsmiths College, 2008). Member of the program team at the Athens International Film Festival – “Premiere Nights”, while in the period 2017-2020 he was the Promotion Director at the Hellenic Film Center, and today he is the Director and founding member of ETHNOFEST and the festival of the same name.
Venue
TRIANON is not a building where a business struggles to survive.
TRIANON is countless individuals who are struggling to support entrepreneurship in art
Having hosted everybody who is passionate about art.
Having relentlessly supported young Greek filmmakers.
Having resisted the decline of downtown Athens.
Believing every moment that “PATISION Lives”.
More info at: TRIANON.GR
Tickets
All ready to attend?
Tickets will be available on the venue for the price of 3€ per slot.
Press Kit
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Positively Different Short Film Festival