HONORARY CEREMONY FOR ARTO HALONEN
The
10th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival honored one of the most
important
directors of the new generation of Finnish documentary
makers, Arto Halonen.
The special event took place on the evening
of Tuesday, March 11, in the
Olympion’s Pavlos Zannas theater.
Introducing the Guest of Honor, the Director of the
Thessaloniki Documentary
Festival, Dimitris Eipides said: “Each
year, it is the tradition of the
Thessaloniki Documentary
Festival to honor the work of a distinguished
documentary maker
whose work has contributed to the broadening and development
of the
genre on an international scale.” He added: “This is the second
time in
the last ten years that we have honored a director from
Finland. In the past we
have honored Pirjo Honkasalo, and this
year we are honoring an artist who is
just as important, Arto
Halonen.”
“An award such as today’s is a special moment
of affirmation in the life of a
film maker, given all the
difficulties and obstacles we face in our work”, the
distinguished
director noted. He accepted the award from the Artistic Director
with particular joy, and added: “I have been following the
Thessaloniki
Documentary Festival for years, it is a great joy
for me to see it grow. This
makes today’s honor to me even more
important. I thank the Documentary
Festival, I thank Thessaloniki
Following the conclusion of the ceremony, the audience had
the opportunity to
see Arto Halonen’s most recent work, Shadow
of the Holy Book. In the film, the
Finnish documentary maker
tracks the means by which the dictatorship in
Turkmenistan was
established, through the sequence of events and elements that
gave
the necessary alibi to the western world to support it, in the guise
of a
“cultural”exchange.
The
10th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival
published a catalogue of Halonen and his work.
The festival director
Dimitri Epides estabishes the following in his opening speech:
Arto Halonen is not only multifaceted artist, but is also a man who
has dedicated himself to the art of
the documentary, supporting it
from the first stage of the
”idea” to the need for it to be disseminated to
the rest of the
world. Through his films, he proceeds to experiment, evolve, and
redefine himself,
overturning cinemaīs aesthetic and stylistic
constants and discovering new ways of expression.
Socially poignant
and at the same time moving and anthropocentric, his oeuvre resembles
a
multi-layered mosaic. The insightful commentary, the poetical
dimension of the images, the
multiple ways of interpreting the work, the variety of subject matter, as well the readiness
with which he
chronicles the complexity of events, all make us Arto Halonenīs
private universe.
A universe that digs under the verisimilitude of
reality and brings to light its inner, true core.
A universe that
gradually “peels off” its layers, for as long as it takes to
watch one of his documentaries.
___________________________________________________________________
Press pictures from the awards gala:
http://www.tsouflidis.gr/?page_id=14&album=7&gallery=244
Thessaloniki
Documentary Film Festival:
http://www.filmfestival.gr/docfestival/uk/index.htm
