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Thessaloniki International Documentary Film Festival · 2026

Thessaloniki International Documentary Film Festival 2026

Open Horizons

Programme

14 films · 6 reviews

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American Doctor

Review preview for American Doctor

A fourth doctor, unsuccessful in his efforts to get to Gaza, helps in whatever ways he can. This enables the film to move between intense scenes within Gaza itself, and the US, where it’s easier to breathe.

Jennie Kermode · 4.5 out of 5
When three American doctors — Palestinian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian — enter Gaza to save lives, they find themselves caught between medicine and politics, risking everything to expose the truth.

(Country: US, Palestinian Territory, Malaysia, Qatar, Denmark, Japan; Year: 2026; Director: Poh Si Teng)

Full review

Ask E. Jean

Review preview for Ask E. Jean

Her experience could be Exhibit A for anyone trying to articulate the reasons survivors stay silent through fear of blowing up their own lives rather than their attackers’

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
Charting E. Jean Carroll's life, including her court case showdown with Donald Trump.

(Country: US; Year: 2026; Director: Ivy Meeropol; Stars: E Jean Carroll)

Full review

Opening night gala

Barbara Forever

Review preview for Barbara Forever

What emerges over the course of O’Connor’s feature is not a saintly monument but a vibrant, difficult, funny, and unsentimental person.

Edin Custo · 4 out of 5
An archive-driven exploration of the life, work, and legacy of iconic, pioneering lesbian filmmaker Barbara Hammer.

(Country: US; Year: 2026; Director: Brydie O'Connor)

Full review See: Brydie O’Connor on Barbara Forever, queer wisdom and bringing Barbara Hammer to younger audiences

Black is Beautiful: The Kwame Brathwaite Story

Documentary about the photographer, freedom fighter and activist.

(Country: UK, US; Year: 2025; Director: Yemi Bamiro; Writer: Otto Burnham, Yemi Bamiro; Stars: Alicia Keys, Gabrielle Union, Jesse Williams)

Cookie Queens

It’s Girl Scout Cookie season, and four tenacious girls strive to be a top-selling “Cookie Queen,” navigating an $800 million business in which childhood and ambition collide.

(Country: US; Year: 2026; Director: Alysa Nahmias; Writer: Alysa Nahmias)

Everybody To Kenmure Street

Review preview for Everybody To Kenmure Street

Even for those who were present on the day, there are likely to be revelations.

Jennie Kermode · 5 out of 5
In May 2021, a UK Home Office dawn raid triggers one of the most spontaneous and successful acts of civil resistance in recent memory. In Scotland’s most diverse neighbourhood, hundreds of residents rush to the streets to stop the deportation of their neighbours.

(Country: United Kingdom; Year: 2026; Director: Felipe Bustos Sierra)

Full review See: Felipe Bustos Sierra on safeguarding and authenticity in Everybody To Kenmure Street.

Jaripeo

Review preview for Jaripeo

The documentary is attentive to contradiction without flattening its subjects into symbols.

Edin Custo · 3.5 out of 5
A journey to Michoacán’s hypermasculine rodeos descends into the subconscious of memory, queer desire, and longing, leading to a reckoning with the wounds and beauty of a home left behind.

(Country: Mexico, US, France; Year: 2026; Director: Rebecca Zweig, Efraín Mojica)

Full review

Nuns Vs. The Vatican (#NunsToo)

A small group of nuns reveals an agonising truth about the Catholic Church: the terrifying accounts of predatory priests torturing nuns.

(Country: Italy, US; Year: 2025; Director: Lorena Luciano; Writer: Lorena Luciano; Stars: John Allen, Gloria, Nicole Winfield, Hans Zollner, Laura Sgro)

The Oldest Person In The World

A decade-long global journey chronicles the ever-changing record holders of the title of oldest person alive. What begins as a portrait of longevity becomes a meditation on the passage of time, the randomness of fate, and the joy and profound human experience of being alive.

(Country: US; Year: 2026; Director: Sam Green)

Reality Is Not Enough (Am I Irvine Welsh)

Documentary about the Trainspotting author.

(Year: 2023; Director: Paul Sng)

Silenced

After #MeToo broke the cultural silence on gender violence, international human rights lawyer Jennifer Robinson fights against the weaponization of defamation laws to silence survivors.

(Country: US; Year: 2026; Director: Selina Miles)

Traces

Documentary shines a light on Ukrainian women who, after surviving conflict-related sexual violence and torture during the Russian war of aggression, refuse to remain silent.

(Country: Ukraine, Poland; Year: 2026; Director: Alisa Kovalenko, Marysia Nikitiuk)

Tristan Forever

For 30 years, a doctor from Paris has maintained a friendship with a fisherman on Tristan da Cunha, the most isolated inhabited island in the world. Now he travels back one more time, with the plan to stay there for good.

(Country: Switzerland; Year: 2026; Director: Tobias Nölle)