Noticias

The Thessaloniki Documentary Festival kicks off its 25th edition Thursday at a time when the nonfiction genre has arguably reached unprecedented heights.

This year’s festival, which takes place March 2 – 12 in the seaside Mediterranean city, unfolds just days after veteran French docmaker Nicolas Philibert won the Golden Bear in Berlin for his documentary about a Paris mental health care facility, “On the Adamant.” The award capped a fortnight in which Sean Penn’s gonzo doc about Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, “Superpower,” also generated plenty of buzz (albeit lukewarm reviews).

Meanwhile, Cameroon’s Cyrielle Raingou took home Rotterdam’s Tiger Award just a few weeks earlier for “Le Spectre de Boko Haram,” a riveting view of terrorism seen through children’s eyes. And one summer ago, Laura Poitras triumphed on the Lido with “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” her docu-portrait of the photographer and activist Nan Goldin, which won the...

Pioneering Greek director Giorgos Lanthimos' festival favourite Alps (Alpeis, 2011), the controversial filmmaker's follow-up to the Oscar-nominated, cult smash Dogtooth (2009), is another weird and wonderful exploration of human psychology, and stars Stavros Psyllakis, Aris Servetalis and Johnny Vekris. To celebrate the eagerly anticipated DVD release of Alps on Monday 11 March, courtesy of UK distributor Artificial Eye, we have Three copies of the film to offer to our world cinema-loving followers. This is an exclusive competition for our Facebook and Twitter fans, so if you haven't already, 'Like' us at facebook.com/CineVueUK or follow us @CineVue before answering the question below.

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Argo | Alps | My Brother The Devil | East End Babylon | Aurora | Grassroots | Here Comes The Boom | Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan | The Sapphires | People Like Us | Love Bite

Argo (15)

(Ben Affleck, 2012, Us) Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin, John Goodman, 120 mins

Affleck's rehabilitation is complete thanks to this unlikely-but-true collision of Hollywood sci-fi and Iranian politics. It looks and feels like a lost 1970s thriller, with perfect retro styling and slow-burning tension, all nicely undercut by a CIA agent's crazy plan to use a Star Wars knock-off to spirit Americans out of revolutionary Tehran. A fake 70s thriller about a fake 70s sci-fi, based on a real story – what's not to like?

Alps (15)

(Giorgos Lanthimos, 2011, Gre) Stavros Psyllakis, Aris Servetalis, 93 mins

More audacious but coolly deadpan oddness from the Dogtooth director, this time following a secretive group who provide a surreal service for grieving relatives. The world's a stage, Lanthimos hints,...

Director: Giorgos Lanthimos Writers: Giorgos Lanthimos, Efthymis Filippou Starring: Aris Servetalis, Johnny Vekris, Ariane Labed, Aggeliki Papoulia, Stavros Psyllakis People sometimes do very strange things to cope with the loss of a loved one; for example, in writer-director Giorgos Lanthimos' Alps they hire an actor from a highly skilled collective to temporarily assume the role of the deceased. The collective goes by the name Alps. Why? Well, Mont Blanc (Aris Servetalis) -- the de facto leader of the Alps -- explains that while the majestic European mountain range is irreplaceable, the individual mountains of the Alps can seamlessly replace any other mountain in the world. Sure the Alps mountain may not resemble the one that it is replacing; but as part of the Alps, it possesses the innate ability to convince you otherwise. Similarly, Mont Blanc's team of actors may not look like the deceased person, but they utilize...