The Festivals of Thessaloniki are a group of festivals held throughout the year in Thessaloniki, Greece.
The Thessaloniki International Fair has a venerable modern history dating to 1926. Hosted every September for 10 days at the 180,000 m² Thessaloniki International Exhibition Center, in the heart of the city, the fair is organised by HELEXPO, which also organises themed exhibitions and congresses throughout the year. The International Trade Fair is inaugurated by the Prime Minister and attended by more than 300,000 visitors every year.
The Thessaloniki International Film Festival has become the primary showcase in Southeastern Europe for the work of new and emerging filmmakers, as well as the leading film festival of the region. The event features an International Section, its Panorama of Greek Film, the New Horizons program, the Balkan Survey, and numerous retrospectives and tributes to leading figures in the world of film. Since 1993, a succession of leading lights of international cinema, including Francis Ford Coppola, Faye Dunaway, Catherine Deneuve and Irene Papas, have visited the Festival.
The Thessaloniki Documentary Festival was launched in March 1999, inspired by Dimitri Elpides and benefiting from the local public's enthusiastic response, alongside extensive coverage in the local and international press. In 2005, 22,000 admissions were registered. The main programme focuses on documentaries that explore global social and cultural developments, and also now introduces a number of new side sections and events based on important works by new documentarists. Films from the main programme will be candidates for the FIPRESCI and also the Audience Awards.
The festival attracts a filmgoing public which rediscovers, year after year, images of the new century, new film ecritures, new directors, new technologies, but also representatives of the film world who find in it a reliable organisation appropriate for promoting their work. The event revolves around a sequence of unchanging sections: stories to tell, views of the world, the recording of memory, and portraits, but each year's programme is also supplemented with several others.
The Festival aims to the offer the filmgoing public annually gathering in Thessaloniki an exploration of the common images of the early 21st century, and to explore its human landscape through documentary.
The Thessaloniki International Festival of Photography (Photosynkyria) takes place in Thessaloniki from February to mid-April of every year, attracting the interest of both the photographic world and the wider public, while also functioning as a meeting point for the Greek and the international photographic scene. Photosynkyria exhibitions and events are hosted in a variety of venues around Thessaloniki, including museums, heritage landmarks, galleries, bookshops and cafes.
Photosynkyria was launched in 1988 by photographer Aris Georgiou, and over the past five years has been organized by the Museum of Photography, which annually appoints the artistic director of the festival.
The TIBF began in 2003 and has grown is the leading cultural event for books in Greece, as well as to become a focal point for the book world in Greece and the wider Balkan and Mediterranean region.
This three-month-long festival of cultural events has been held every September–December since 1966. Named after Agios Dimitrios (St. Demetrius), the patron saint of the city, it has become something of an institution for the city and very popular with the local population. It includes musical, theatrical, dance events, street happenings and exhibitions, and is organised and overseen by the Municipality of Thessaloniki, celebrating its fiftieth anniversary in 2015.
The Video Dance Festival started in 2000 at Thessaloniki as an international dance film festival, but soon widened to include additional experimental forms incorporating movement and the moving image.
The Greek DMC DJ Championship is hosted in Thessaloniki at the International Trade Fair Of Thessaloniki.
DMC’s World DJ Championships, sponsored internationally by Technics and Ortofon, has grown over the years and the formats of its competitions have developed along with demand.[ citation needed ] Originally intended to be a DJ mixing battle, DJ Cheese introduced scratching in his routine in 1986, changing the course of future DMC battles.
The only equipment permitted in Technics' DJ Championships worldwide are Technics SL1200 turntables and the Technics EX-DJ1200 mixer; the DJs are allowed a period of exactly six minutes to perform.
THHF (Thessaloniki Hip Hop Festival) is Greece's biggest HipHop & Underground Rap festivals and it's organised and promoted by Zoltan Tribe. THHF was foundered in 2003 and since then it has hosted world-famous artists as RA The Rugged Man (USA), DJ Vadim & Yarah Bravo (UK), Afu-Ra (USA), Foreign Beggars (UK), Lowkey (UK), Da Shogunz (NL), Snowgoons Soundsystem (DE), Freestyle (The Arsonists), Lerroy of the Saian Supa Crew (France), Wax Tailor (France), DJ Flip (ITF world), Zion I (USA), Zontanoi Nekroi, FF.C, Razastarr, Eisvoleas, Voreia Asteria, Ladose, Apexeis, Phase 3, Orthologistes, Psychodrama07, RNS, Sifu VERSUS, Sugahspank!, Professional Sinnerz, Rodes and many more.
Kurtis Walker, professionally known by his stage name Kurtis Blow, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, record/film producer, b-boy, DJ, public speaker and minister. He is the first commercially successful rapper and the first to sign with a major record label. "The Breaks", a single from his 1980 self-titled debut album, is the first certified gold record rap song. Throughout his career he has released 15 albums and is currently an ordained minister.
Biennale, Italian for "biennial" or "every other year", is any event that happens every two years. It is most commonly used within the art world to describe large-scale international contemporary art exhibitions. As such the term was popularised by Venice Biennale, which was first held in 1895. The phrase has since been used for other artistic events, such as the "Biennale de Paris", "Kochi-Muziris Biennale", Berlinale and Viennale. "Biennale" is therefore used as a general term for other recurrent international events.
Richard Quitevis known by his stage name DJ Qbert or Qbert, is an American turntablist and composer. He was awarded America's Best DJ in 2010, was DMC USA Champion 1991 (solo) and achieved titles as DMC World Champion in 1992 and 1993.
The Invisibl Skratch Piklz are an American group of turntablists.
The Thessaloniki International Film Festival (TIFF), organized by the cultural institution of the same name under the auspices of the Greek Ministry of Culture, is held every November in Thessaloniki.TIFF features international competition sections, and its program includes tributes to major filmmakers and national cinemas, as well as sidebar events such as masterclasses, exhibitions, live concerts and workshops. Further to TIFF, its parent cultural institution holds the annual Thessaloniki Documentary Festival (TDF) in March.
Rob Swift, is an American hip hop DJ and turntablist. He was an original member of the turntablist group The X-Ecutioners until 2004. He has also released numerous solo albums and collaborated with various artists, including Mike Patton, Patton's project Peeping Tom, Dan the Automator and Handsome Boy Modeling School, Lords of Acid, Portugal. The Man, and Herbie Hancock.
The Thessaloniki Documentary Festival (TDF) is an international documentary festival held every March in Thessaloniki, Greece. TDF, founded in 1999, features competition sections and ranks among the world's leading documentary festivals. Since 2018, TDF is one of the 28 festivals included in the American Academy of Motion Picture, Arts and Sciences Documentary Feature Qualifying Festival List. TDF is organized by the Thessaloniki Film Festival cultural institution, which further organizes the annual Thessaloniki International Film Festival, held every November. French producer Elise Jalladeu is TDF's general director; film critic Orestes Andreadakis serves as its director.
QBoy is a UK-based rapper, producer, DJ, writer and presenter. One of the original few out rappers in hip hop circa 2001 that became pioneers of the new subgenre colloquially known as "homo hop". QBoy is currently DJ and promoter of popular LGBTQ club night and party 'R & She: The Queens Of Hip-Hop & R&B' which hosts events in London, Berlin and New York City.
MOMus Contemporary, in full MOMus–Museum of Contemporary Art–Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art and State Museum of Contemporary Art Collections, is a contemporary art museum in Thessaloniki, Central Macedonia, Greece, located in the area of the Thessaloniki International Fair. It was formerly known as the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art.
Carter "Fever One" McGlasson is a b-boy and DJ originally from Seattle, Washington who relocated to New York City in 1997 and eventually joined the world-famous Rock Steady Crew. He is most well known for his 'gunzblazin' style which he developed while studying with his mentors Icey Ice and Lil' Lep of the New York City Breakers.
Yannis Kontos is a Greek documentary photographer, professor of photography and commercial photographer. He has covered major events for over a decade in more than 50 countries. His work has been published in newspapers, magazines, and books.
Janette Beckman is a British documentary photographer who currently lives in New York City. Beckman describes herself as a documentary photographer. While she produces a lot of work on location, she is also a studio portrait photographer. Her work has appeared on records for the major labels, and in magazines including Esquire,Rolling Stone,Glamour,Italian Vogue,The Times,Newsweek,Jalouse,Mojo and others.
Ricky Powell was an American photographer who documented popular culture including hip hop, punk rock, graffiti, and pop art. His photographs have been featured in The New York Times, the New York Post, the Daily News, The Village Voice, TIME, Newsweek, VIBE, The Source, Rolling Stone, among other publications. His photographs included candid portraits of artists including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol, Madonna, in addition to many other popular culture artists and other common people. His photographs were included in the books The Rap Photography of Ricky Powell! (1998), The Rickford Files: Classic New York Photographs (2000), Frozade Moments: Classic Street Photography of Ricky Powell (2004), and Public Access: Ricky Powell Photographs (2005) and were exhibited both domestically and internationally.
Stocktown started out in the late 1990s as a collective documenting all aspects of street culture via an online magazine, documentaries, exhibitions, music- and film festivals. Stocktown was founded by Teddy Goitom, and is based in Stockholm, Sweden but has collaborated with artists, filmmakers, graphic designers, programmers, architects and fashion designers all over the world. In the years since it was founded, Stocktown has produced several series’ of documentaries covering international street culture in its various forms. Stocktown also runs an online video magazine focusing on worldwide street culture.
Bill Adler is an American music journalist and critic who specializes in hip-hop. Since the early 1980s he has promoted hip-hop in a variety of capacities, including as a publicist, biographer, record label executive, documentary filmmaker, museum consultant, art gallerist, curator, and archivist. He may be best known for his tenure as director of publicity at Def Jam Recordings (1984–1990), the period of his career to which the critic Robert Christgau was referring when he described Adler as a "legendary publicist."
Run-DMC was an American hip hop group from Hollis, Queens, New York City, founded in 1983 by Joseph Simmons, Darryl McDaniels, and Jason Mizell. Run-DMC is regarded as one of the most influential acts in the history of hip hop culture and one of the most famous hip hop acts of the 1980s. Along with Beastie Boys, LL Cool J and Public Enemy, the group pioneered new school hip hop music. The group was among the first to highlight the importance of the MC and DJ relationship.
Contact High: A Visual History of Hip-Hop is a 2018 photography book created and written by Vikki Tobak and ongoing exhibition series. The volume features contact prints from analog photography sessions of hip hop artists during roughly forty-years, from the beginnings of the genre in the late 1970s until the late 2000s.
The Thessaloniki Film Festival is a Thessaloniki-based cultural institution focusing on cinema. The Institution organizes the Thessaloniki International Film Festival every November and the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival every March, while its year-long activity includes the Thessaloniki Cinema Museum and the Thessaloniki Cinemateque, as well as screenings and special tributes held throughout the year, and educational programs. The Thessaloniki Film Festival is the largest film institution in Greece., its activity attracting more than 300.000 visitors yearly.
Dmitry Vinokurov, also known as DJ Tactics — DJ, sound producer, and cultural figure from Russia, Moscow. His career has started in the late 1998 as a DJ and sound producer. His scene name comes from the parallel to the ways of using different tactics in approaching particular styles and genres, it sends a message of diversity that can be applied to mixing, recording and scratching. His style is described by Rolling Stone magazine as “Addicted to phat beats and making the crowd head nod over the beats”. His main styles are Hip-Hop, Electronic, Funk/Soul and Turntablism.