The 6th edition of Athens Ethnographic Film Festival kicks off today (25.11) in the Exile Room and runs until Sunday, November 29th. The Festival aims to introduce ethnographic films to a wider audience and initiate a discussion about the place and perspective of this cinematic genre, as well as the discipline of social anthropology. It also provides a platform to young filmmakers, anthropologists and social scientists to showcase their work. An important part of the Festival is dedicated to student films submitted as thesis for postgraduate degrees of visual anthropology at universities around the world.

The Festival’s themed section (“Images of desire at different times of crisis”) will feature films, a one-day conference and a masterclass on the representation of desire at different periods and manifestations of crisis. Considering desire as an affective and political notion intertwined with the effects of neoliberalism, globalization, war, immigration and colonization, the organizers have invited filmmakers inspired by feminist, post-colonialist, queer and other critical approaches.

Ethnofest's screenings include "Eat your Childern" by Treasa O'Brian and Mary Jane from Ireland; "Mariupolis" by Mantas Kvedaravicius from Ukraine (a  work in progress); "What Life is Like Here" by Marlene Wynants from Germany; "A dream school in the Steppes" by Güliz Sağlam from Turkey, as well as many student films from EthnoFest's Summer School 2015 on the Visual Ethnography of Cityscapes. Chantal Akerman’s "News from Home", well known as a "diasporic and epistolary narrative" documentary, is to be screened today, Wednesday (25.11), at the Auditorium of the Institut Français de Grèce, in honour and farewell of the pioneer director, who passed away in October 5th.