Three films in “Saloniki 2025”: a gossip that contradicts its documentary values

Different topics of three films, shown in the 27th session (6-16 March 2025) for the “Salonik International Documentary Film Festival”, is met by one subscriber, lies in the fact that the man is an essential figure, if he is in the prime of youth, or before the end of life: “The game of dating” (2025, 90 minutes) for Chinese Vellet de Fang (“Special Offers” program), and “Eyes of Gaza” (2024, 50 minutes) for the Palestinian Mahmoud Atassi (“Open Horizons – Long Movies” Program), and “Call” (2025, 105 minutes) for Russian Vera Creschaskaya (“Open Horizons – Long Movies” Program), and the latter narrates chapters from the biography of the Soviet scientist Damati Zamim, who decides to end his life, so he is implemented on himself “Merciful”, on December 22, on December 22 2021, a few months before his 89th birthday celebrated (born on April 28, 1933).

As for the young people, they attend in the films “Dating Game” and “The Eyes of Gaza”, although they are facing life challenges that are absolutely not similar, because the four in the Chinese film are looking for girls for any kind of relationship with them, especially marriage, while the three young men in the TV investigation of Autassi live in an Israeli extermination war, which is in response to “The Flood of Al -Aqsa” (October 7, 2023). The Soviet scientist is a specialist in communications, and for his proficiency cooperates secretly with the authorities of his country, before he becomes a good actor, and the Russian opposition supports Alexei Navalny (1976-2024). “Connected” documents his life and professional biography with his voicing and direct presence, using old TV TV interviews with him, and photographs since his childhood and youth, and begins with words to Ogie Fabla, the American police officer who becomes a businessman, who has strong relationships for many years.

Gossip is a valid description of the three films, although the secrets of “continuous” reflect a historical path for a world that lives with radical changes, the country (the Soviet Union – Russia), for international relations, knowledge, knowledge and communication (secret – public), as well as a friendship between two “opponents” who become friends. As for the “dating game”, it is a very local situation, and in a specific age group, although the margins have details of life, environment, meeting and politics. While “Gaza Eyes” is satisfied with filming Gaza’s diaries with youthful eyes, the camera of Bilal Salem and Mu’tasim Abu Al -Ahbar is chasing it in a wandering between ruins and in places trying to stem in front of the Israeli killing machine, and in meetings with people who want a decent living in their country.

If a “connected” gossip is based on re -drawing the features of time in periods, contradict each other, 90 minutes (dating game) looks much longer than words that are said, and in some of them feelings and desires, and what resembles disappointments. A “continuous” restores “times” a witness to radical coups in a world, societies and relationships, so the gossip in it appears closer to a mirror that reflects a biography, a large part of it is linked to a world, societies and relationships, which reduces a little weight and negative. While the “dating game” gossip comes out, sometimes, from a dramatic/aesthetic pillar in the documentary type, for a void that has several chapters, and for an unjustified and aesthetic lengthening.

In “The eyes of Gaza”, which is busy with the television of the television technology, is a complete absence of the art of cinematic documentation, although a documentary festival such as “Saloniki” chooses to display it in a program, and this, in itself, is morally important, to present it (the formalag) harsh moments of harsh live in geography, described by the Israeli historian Alan Alan, ” It was issued in 2017). This is not an objectionable to a critical reading, in which you see a normal reportage, no more. The realistic images, which confirm an Israeli crime against civilians and civilians, appear to be the only speaker with an inhuman and immoral situation imposed by Israel with the strength of the crime that has.

Young men, the “dating game”, says what they feel in a condition that afflicts them, and what they say is not addressed to the camera (Wei Gao), but in meetings between them, at an evening, dinner, on foot, or wandering in a square. This is also in the “eyes of Gaza”, as the camera is chasing, imagining and documenting without direct confrontation with the characters. As for “continued”, the camera (Heko Gilberto and Adrian Petrosian) picks up the sayings of Dumati Zemin in his old age, as if she was exhumed in himself, his soul and depths, along with ancient visual/auditory records.