National Geographic and the Discovery Channel were among those featured at the first Zakynthos International Film Festival (September 7-9, 2001). As local filmmakers were encouraged to apply for a Discovery Campus masterclass, a Geographic rep showed off an amazing camera that allows marine animals to "film" their own lives.

And while these events and the presence of foreign filmmakers offered as much glamour as the documentary genre allows, the first Zakynthos festival was mostly a local affair. The heads of Greek State Television and local schoolchildren sat side-by-side in Zakynthos town's municipal cinema to watch the video projections.

To the festival's credit, it was possible to watch all 13 international as well as the six Greek films in competition - though this meant no time for visiting enticing local beaches. There was however an "official" festival boat tour of stunning Laganas Bay, the main nesting grounds of the endangered Loggerhead sea turtle (or Caretta caretta).

What's showing?
Seated in creaky canvas armchairs festival-goers could see the world of charcoal-makers of Brazil or fur-farmers of Finland. Some films, like Chimpanzees Return to the Forests, glorified ecologists, while others merely asked questions. By far the most philosophical one was Dutch film The Sea That Thinks , which basically asked, "Who am I?" Some of the filmmakers on hand included Argentina's Ana Zanotti, who brought a tale on the biological and cultural diversity of Missiones, Argentina, and Igor Romanovsky (Superbomb), who was happy to divulge all he knew about Russia's nuclear industry.

The Greek films on show revealed room for more diverse environmental productions. Instead of focusing on one burning ecological issue, they tended to ponder on the 'village vs city life' issue. This was the case in Yannis Lambrou's already awarded Passages Through Paradise, a long, meditative look at Mt Athos life, or Stelios Haralambopoulos' Mediterranean Stories, an examination of the bread, olive oil and wine culture. This trend was echoed in films from Italy and the Balkans, as in the Croatian entry One Day Under the Sun, which focused on the details of provincial life.

Crowd-pleasers included young director Costas Kostopoulos' brilliant The Last Language of Truth, in which a male Caretta caretta turtle narrates his underwater life. Like many of the Greek films, Kostopoulos' work had already made its rounds before the festival, as it is shown to thousands of youngsters annually by turtle protection non-governmental organisation Archelon. For his part, veteran Stavros Ioannou showed excerpts from his work-in-progress about the Loggerhead turtles too.

The festival, run smoothly by filmmaker Loukia Rikaki, was launched by the Ministry of the Environment, Physical Planning and Public Works and the National Marine Park of Zakynthos. Come next September, the new Zakynthos film festival is expected to attract more international participation and local press coverage.