Documentary festival announces this year’s line-up

More than 20 ground-breaking documentaries will take place at the 18^th edition of the Lemesos International Documentary Festival this summer. From August 1 to 8, a line-up of cinema screenings and parallel events will take place at Ceronia Hall – Lanitis Carob Mill providing audiences with a week dedicated to ‘the cinema of the real’.

The festival programme has just been released, announcing the both local and international productions that will be featured. These will be divided into six categories: Art and Music in the Cinema of the Real, Women in Documentary, Gender and Identity, Hazardous Territories, Environment and Climate Crisis, and From Cyprus.

“Films from award-winning documentary directors such as Laura Poitras, Nick Broomfield, Talal Derki and Fredrik Gertten along with new upcoming voices compose this year’s diverse programme of screenings, that promises to break down boundaries and stereotypes, making room for the truth to shine and promoting critical thought,” state the organisers in the official press release.

The films selected for the festival deal with contemporary issues that affect the global community, making controversial references to world history using a variety of cinematographic approaches.

In the Art and Music in the Cinema of the Real category the films Apolonia, Apolonia, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, The Stones and Brian Jones, Fragments of Paradise and Nam June Paik: Moon is the Oldest TV will be screened.

The Women in Documentary section will present Smoke Sauna Sisterhood, Under the Sky of Damascus and The Mother of All Lies.

Four films will make up this year’s Gender and Identity section: Orlando, My Political Biography, Kokomo City and AKOE/AMFI: The Story of a Revolution (*Just to sleep on their chest…) and Queen of the Deuce.

Then the Hazardous Territories category will feature Beyond Utopia, Dogwatch, Breaking Social and Total Trust, while under Environment and Climate Crisis are the films Against the Tide and Between the Rains.

The last section of the festival, From Cyprus will showcase Sajppres by Yiannis Christidis and Konstantinos Koukoulis while The Island Club, in collaboration with the festival, will present A Full Life, I Suppose, by Alexandros Pissourios.

More than just screenings will happen during the festival week though, as music events, public talks with filmmakers, DJ sets and open-air parties complete the festival programme for 2023.

Lemesos International Documentary Festival

18^th edition of annual festival with screenings and parallel events. August 1-8. Ceronia Hall – Lanitis Carob Mill, Limassol. [email protected]. www.filmfestival.com.cy