Docs on the Spot

20^th THESSALONIKI DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL

2-11 March, 2018

A multifaceted artist who fully embodies the term “independent filmmaker”, American director, writer and producer Sara Driver is given a carte blanche in the 20^th anniversary edition of the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival to select some of her favorite films that will be presented in this year's event.

Driver will attend the 20^th TDF to accompany the films (10 documentaries and one fiction film), all of which reflect her idiosyncratic and distinctive look on cinema, also expressed in her work. 

The selection blends art, politics and social issues and provides rare insights into America and the rest of the world, featuring, inter alia, films about Andy Warhol and Thelonious Monk, twist and reggae, rights violation and propaganda mechanisms in the USA, as well as snapshots from New York in the ‘80s.

In addition, Driver’s latest work, the documentary Boom For Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat, dedicated to the extraordinary work and life of the highly influential American painter, will be screened in this year’s TDF edition.

“Many of the films selected for the carte blanche have some relation to our film Boom For Real the Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat - either in subject matter or cultural and political content. And selfishly these are all films I want to see again on the big screen. I am so grateful to the Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival to have this opportunity”, notes Sara Driver about the carte blanche of the 20^th TDF.

The films:

• NATIVE LAND, Paul Strand, Leo Hurwitz, USA, 1942, 80’

• ENERGY AND HOW TO GET IT, Robert Frank, USA, 1981, 28’
• THE LAND OF LOOK BEHIND, Alan Greenberg, USA, 1982, 90’
• SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF ANDY WARHOL: FRIENDSHIPS AND INTERSECTIONS, Jonas Mekas, USA, 1982, 35’
• THE ATOMIC CAFÉ, Kevin Rafferty, Jayne Loader, Pierce Rafferty, 1982, USA, 87’
• DREAM CITY, Steven Siegel, USA, 1986, 18’
• THELONIOUS MONK: STRAIGHT NO CHASER, Charlotte Zwerin, USA, 1988, 90’
• TWIST, Ron Mann, Canada, 1992, 78’

• RIVERS AND TIDES, Thomas Riedelsheimer, Germany, 2000, 91’  
• IDIOCRACY, Mike Judge, 2006, 84’ (fiction)
• JUNE LEAF: A PAINTER, Brigid Kennison,USA, 2018, 12’