The beloved and biggest film festival in the Greek capital, the Athens International Film Festival – “Opening Nights” returns for its 22nd edition from  September 21st to October 2nd, 2016. The centre of Athens is hosting a 10-day cinematic celebration presenting new feature films from around the world and Greece and three competition sections (International, Music&Film, and a special competitive section with 46 Greek short films).
The festival promotes diamonds of the independent cinema, a fine crop of the most anticipated premieres of the year, movies that are accompanied by awards of the largest festivals in the world, documentaries that have already been a talk at the cinema world, classics stops of the past, after midnight screenings and exceptional music films.
Specifically, more than 100 features will be screened at the festival, bookended by Pedro Almodóvar’s “Julieta” and Paul Verhoeven’s “Elle”, and featuring international festival darlings, indie break-outs and cult favourites, such as Nicolas Winding Refn’s Cannes contender “The Neon Demon”, Park Chan-wook’s “The Handmaiden” and Yeon Sang-ho’s Malaysian box-office annihilator “Train to Busan”.
Meanwhile, the gathering will also offer a retrospective of Louis Malle’s most prominent works, as well as a complete run-down of the works of recently deceased Nicholas Triantafyllidis, one of the most revered personalities of Athenian urban culture.
The Athens International Film Festival – “Opening Nights”, was founded by the Athens Film Society with the intention of highlighting lesser-known aspects/genres of independent cinema, introducing audiences to some of the best productions of the year and establishing itself as the ideal opening of the upcoming movie season. The Festival was launched in September 1995 and continues successfully until now.