5th Photopolis Agrinio Photo Festival

Photopolis Agrinio Photo Festival is organised for the 5th consecutive year by the "Photopolis Cultural Association".

Agrinio Photo-Festival 2023 includes Pre-Festival and Main events, as well as a thematic exhibition.

This year's program will include these.

Two international photo contests, one local photo contest, one international short film contest. Fourteen (14) individual photography exhibitions, Three (3) group photography exhibitions with the participation of sixty (60) photographers, one (1) thematic exhibition. Two days of cinema with 22 short films. Daily presentation of the work of sixteen (16) photographers of the "The provinces" platform.

Portfolio reviews. Masterclass – photobooks by six (8) photographers. One (1) presentation – speech. Three (3) musical events.

It is oriented mainly towards contemporary photography and focuses on an exploratory and critical way of thinking on the issues and concerns of today’s social reality.

The festival is aimed at a wide audience and especially young people and seeks to give the events a supra-local character, with the participation of artists from different countries, producing, among other things, surplus value for the benefit of the city. At the same time, however, it emphasises the promotion and promotion of domestic photographic artistic production.

The festival acts as a driver for gathering and cooperation of cultural bodies and institutions, with the ultimate goal of artistic synergies and exchanges. In this context, it collaborates with people from photography and cinema, cultural institutions of other municipalities as well as with other photography festivals.

The program includes individual and group photography exhibitions with the participation of artists from different countries as well as a set of activities such as screenings of short films, multimedia presentations, portfolio reviews, workshops - masterclasses, lectures, discussions that expand dialogue and active participation.

The events of the festival take place in important places of cultural activities of the Municipality of Agrinio. Specifically, they take place in all the rooms of the renovated building of the old Municipal Market of Agrinio, as well as on the two floors of the "Christos Kapralos" Museum. Both spaces are of high architectural value, registered in the local collective memory. In addition, the central square (with the placement of carefully designed stands) and the ELLINIS cinema, which is considered one of the best summer cinemas in our country, are also used.

COLLABORATION

• The festival has been placed in previous years under the auspices and financial support of the Ministry of Sports and Culture.

• The festival works closely with the municipality of Agrinio, which has placed it under its auspices, providing all the venues for activities, but also financially supporting its activities.

• This year the festival starts a collaboration with the municipality of Thermo and the IDEAPTH (Institute for Creativity, Research and Development of the Region of Thermo) in order to carry out a photographic record of the area (in the form of a photo contest that will focus on the nature and culture of the area). The result of the recording will take the form of a photo exhibition in the Municipality of Thermo.

• This year also sees the launch of a collaboration with the Gymnastic Society of Agrinio, an association with a very long history and tradition in the city's cultural and sporting events, with the aim of co-organising an exhibition with photographic and film collectibles, which are mostly no longer used (photographic, film machines etc).

• The festival has been collaborating with the Photosphere International festival for 4 years. As part of this collaboration, the Photopolis festival is moving Photopolis exhibitions from the previous season to the Photosphere venues in Paros and Patmos. The same goes the other way around.

• The festival also cooperates with the Photometria International Photo Festival, sending every year to Photometria Entefxis and financing the exhibition prints of the photography group "art8" of Agrinio.

• The festival, wanting to give a platform to local photographers to communicate their photographic work and speak photographically about the issues that concern them, collaborates, as every year, with the Traditional Art Workshop of Agrinio, whose members of the photography group "art8 » participate every year with a group photo exhibition at the festival, and are volunteers at it.