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Thessaloniki International Documentary Film Festival · 2026

Thessaloniki International Documentary Film Festival 2026

Newcomers Competition

Programme

4 films · 4 reviews

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One In A Million

Review preview for One In A Million

The most volatile, morally complicated material is treated as turbulence to pass through rather than weather to be reported.

Edin Custo · 3.5 out of 5
Filmed over 10 years, one girl’s epic journey from Syria to Germany and back again. She and her family navigate war, exile, and heartbreak in a foreign land, illuminating the complexities of the refugee experience.

(Country: United Kingdom; Year: 2026; Director: Itab Azzam, Jack Macinnes)

Full review

Sentient

Review preview for Sentient

It doesn’t posture about whether primates are sentient. It treats that as the baseline fact, then asks what kind of civilisation keeps behaving as if it isn’t?

Edin Custo · 4 out of 5
An investigation into laboratory research on animals exposes a hidden world in which it’s not just the animals getting hurt. The story of Dr. Lisa Jones Engel, a primatologist turned animal welfare advocate, asks whether harming animals and ourselves in science’s name is justified.

(Country: Australia; Year: 2026; Director: Tony Jones; Writer: Rachel Grierson-Johns, Tony Jones)

Full review See: Tony Jones on undercover footage, safeguarding and editorial choices in Sentient , Tony Jones talks to us about opening a debate about lab animals with his documentary Sentient

Tirrenica

Review preview for Tirrenica

Has its moments in terms of the characters who are observed but suffers from a lack of cohesive editing and, most crucially, a map to help orient non-Italian viewers.

Amber Wilkinson · 2.5 out of 5
Documentary observing the lives and the history of a highway connecting Italy's south and north.

(Country: Italy, Spain; Year: 2026; Director: Rosario Minervini)

Full review

We Are Stardust

Review preview for We Are Stardust

Rasmussen understands that what makes this quest cinematic is not merely its oddity, but its scale.

Edin Custo · 4 out of 5
Story of a hobby scientist who believed it was possible to find stardust in unlikely places on Earth.

(Country: Norway, Denmark; Year: 2026; Director: Elisabeth Rasmussen; Stars: Jon Larsen, Elisabeth Rasmussen, Jan Braly Kihle, Mike Zolensky)

Full review See: We Are Stardust's Jon Larsen on his micrometeorite quest , Elisabeth Rasmussen on mixing science, myth and art in We Are Stardust