My dear friends,

Reaching with great joy the 8th year of the ascending progression of the "International Documentary Festival of Ierapetra & Awards" and the 2nd year of the "International Film Festival of Crete & Awards", as their Artistic Director, I would like to share my thoughts about these two five-star international cultural institutions which produce culture, promote, and strengthen the local culture. And which over time promote the Greek Cinema and the Greek Production into the International market, through the Ierapetra Film Market that we created, shaping dynamically the cinematic landscape of our country
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Throughout the years that passed, our two Festivals, faithful to their ideals, projected through the Greek fiction and documentary films the Greek, the European and the World Civilization, opening a wide cinematic window to the world, to creators and producers internationally. In parallel, they enforced the tourism development of the region, promoting the local culture and the Cretan civilization up to the far ends of the earth.

Already from the very first year of the creation of our Festivals, one of their greatest achievements was that they managed to set sails traveling beyond the borders of our country, concluding international collaborations, co-organizations and blazing new cinematic and commercial trails between 73 countries of the world. And also, after their closing, every year, the Festivals travel to Crete, to the rest of Greece and to many countries of the world, screening the award-winning films at parallel events and highlighting the cultural character of each region. The strong multicultural identity of the Festivals, offers the podium and the motivation to more and more creators from many countries of the world to participate with their films, here in the southernmost city of Europe, in Ierapetra.
Since the 2nd year, following the "marriage" of Crete with China in the film-process, many collaborations took place, with Israel, France, South Africa, USA, Australia, Russia, Armenia, Ukraine, New Zealand, and with many other countries. In 73 countries from all over the world, through the global film industry, we internationalized our local Identity, our gastronomic culture, the locality, enhancing the development of our island.