The Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival

The 28th Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival ran from 5 to 15 March 2026 — eleven days of non-fiction cinema in the northern capital, the spring half of a programme whose fiction festival holds the city each November. Founded in 1999 by Dimitri Eipides under the subtitle “Images of the 21st Century”, the festival has grown into one of the leading documentary events of the world.

Its home ground is the Olympion on Aristotelous Square, the landmark whose two theatres — the Olympion and the Pavlos Zannas — look down the square towards the Thermaic Gulf, with the programme carried along the waterfront to the restored port warehouses, where the screening rooms are named for filmmakers: Frida Liappa, Tonia Marketaki, John Cassavetes, Stavros Tornes.

The 2026 edition screened 252 documentaries, among them a record eighty world premieres, and conferred Honorary Golden Alexander awards on the filmmakers Vouvoula Skoura, Bill Morrison and Yorgos Papalios. The festival is organised by the Thessaloniki Film Festival under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture.