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An atmosphere of violence and paranoia pervades Peter Fleischmann’s 1975 thriller Weak Spot from its opening shot, in which a nameless man commits suicide by jumping from a balcony rather than going with the military secret police. The nature of his suspected crime is never revealed, and when, just a few minutes later, Georgis (Ugo Tognazzi) is arrested on suspicion of conspiring with a political subversive merely because of his reaction when the man stepped on his foot, it’s clear that truth and justice are malleable in the hands of these secret police.

Weak Spot is set during a seven-year period in Greece that began with its right-wing military junta putting a group of power-hungry colonels in charge of the country. And while it’s focused on the sense of fear, disorientation, and mistrust that accompanied this period of scaremongering and rampant torture of innocents, the film is too...

The 20th edition of the festival includes competition titles ’71 and Blind.

The Athens International Film Festival (Sept 17-28) kicks off its 20th edition today with 241 titles selected by artistic director Orestis Andreadakis.

The festival will open with Damian Szifron’s hit Wild Tales, which has proved a critical hit since its world premiere in competition at Cannes, and will close with David Fincher’s Us crime drama Gone Girl, marking its European premiere.

This year’s international competition includes Yann Demange’s Berlinale title, ’71, and Eskil Vogt’s Blind, which has picked up awards in Berlin and Sundance among others.

‘71, Yann Demange (UK)10,000 km, Carlos Marques-Marcet (Spa)Blind, Eskil Vogt (Nor)The Canal, Ivan Kavanagh (Irel)Manos Sucias, Josef Wladyka (Us-Col)The Mend, John Magary (Us)Natural Sciences, Matías Lucchesi (Arg)Thou Wast Mild and Lovely, Josephine Decker (Us)The Way He Looks, Daniel Ribeiro (Bra)When Animals Dream, Jonas Alexander Arnby (De)

A five-member Youth Jury, comprised...