Thessaloniki International Film Festival: Dates, Venues, Tickets

Thessaloniki, the second city of Greece, sits on the Thermaic Gulf in Central Macedonia, and every November its cinemas take over the town. The Thessaloniki International Film Festival is the city's biggest cultural event of the season, and the 67th edition runs 5 to 15 November 2026, per the festival's own pages.

What Is The Thessaloniki International Film Festival?

The Thessaloniki International Film Festival is an annual film festival held each November in Thessaloniki, a coastal city on the Thermaic Gulf in northern Greece, and its 67th edition runs 5 to 15 November 2026 according to the festival's own site. It is the city's flagship cinema event of the season, screening films at venues across the centre over roughly ten days.

The festival is one of several fixed points in the city's cultural calendar, alongside the Thessaloniki International Fair in September and the reported Dimitria festival, whose 61st edition ran 1 to 26 October 2026. Film Festival fortnight, as the November slot functions, lands after the autumn events and before the Christmas season, which makes it a quiet-but-busy window: museum hours have shifted to winter schedules, seafront walking is still pleasant, and the city fills with an audience that is here for cinema rather than beaches.

For a first-time visitor the practical upshot is simple. A festival trip in November is a city trip: cinemas, museums, Byzantine churches and food markets, with day trips possible before or after the screenings. The rest of this guide follows that logic, section by section, using only what the official sources state.

When Is The Thessaloniki International Film Festival In 2026?

The 67th Thessaloniki International Film Festival runs 5 to 15 November 2026, a run of about ten days, per the festival's own site. The festival is an annual November event in Thessaloniki, so visitors planning around it should anchor their dates to the published edition rather than to a fixed calendar week.

The November slot matters for planning in three ways. First, it sits just after the late-October cluster of Saint Demetrius day on 26 October, the city's patron saint and liberation day, and Ochi Day on 28 October, a state holiday with a parade. Arriving in the days before the festival means catching those celebrations, plus free entry to state museums on 28 October, one of the standard free-admission days the Museum of Byzantine Culture's visiting page lists.

November is when museums and sites shift to winter hours. The Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki runs 09:00 to 17:00 and is closed on Tuesday from 1 November to 31 March, per its own hours page. The White Tower and the Museum of Byzantine Culture both move to 08:30 to 15:30 winter schedules on 1 November. A festival visitor who wants museums should therefore plan them in the morning and save the afternoons and evenings for screenings.

Third, the festival overlaps the shoulder season for accommodation, when the climate resilience fee drops to its lower November-to-March band. The fee exists, is collected by the accommodation, is charged per room per night and is higher from April to October; print no rate, just expect it on the bill.

Between screenings, the city itself is the supporting programme. The Thessaloniki Travel Guide covers the full sight list, from the White Tower on the seafront to the Byzantine churches of the UNESCO fifteen, and a festival week leaves enough daylight gaps to see a good share of them.

Where Are The Festival Venues In Thessaloniki?

The festival screens at venues across central Thessaloniki, per the festival's own locations page, with the city's cinemas, theatres and cultural spaces in the historic centre doing the work. No single venue list belongs on this page in detail, because the festival publishes its own; what is fixed is the geography, a compact, walkable centre between Aristotelous Square and the seafront.

Thessaloniki's centre is small enough that venue-hopping is realistic on foot. Aristotelous Square, laid out after the Great Fire of 1917 under the Hebrard plan, is the natural hinge: cinemas and theatres cluster within a short walk of it, the Ladadika restaurant quarter sits just west, and the Nea Paralia promenade runs east along the water. The White Tower, the city's landmark, stands at the eastern end of that walk.

For movement further out, the metro is open: Line 1 has run since November 2024, and the Kalamaria extension, five more stations to Mikra, was inaugurated on 27 August 2026, per the Ministry of Infrastructure's press release. Trains run 05:15 to 00:30 Sunday to Thursday and until 02:00 on Friday and Saturday, which covers late festival nights. The Thessaloniki metro guide has the detail.

Check the current venue list on the festival's own site before booking anything non-refundable. What does not change is the city: the venues sit in a centre that the one day in Thessaloniki itinerary covers on foot.

A festival day also needs a break from dark rooms. The OTE Tower on the seafront offers a rotating experience with a light meal, and the tower sits within the fair grounds area that the Thessaloniki International Fair guide describes. It is the kind of between-screenings pause that needs no planning beyond a booking slot. Check availability

How Do You Get Tickets For The Thessaloniki International Film Festival?

Festival tickets are sold through the festival's official ticketing channels, per the festival's own site. The 2026 edition runs 5 to 15 November 2026, and the programme with individual screening times is published in the run-up to each edition. Treat accreditation, passes and single tickets as separate products the festival itself defines; no ticket price appears in the sources for this page.

The honest planning advice is procedural rather than numerical. Watch the festival's own site for the programme launch, buy through its official channels only, and treat accreditation, passes and single tickets as separate products the festival itself defines. Accommodation around the festival fortnight should be booked before the programme drops, not after, because the event anchors the city's November calendar the way the Fair anchors September.

Getting to Thessaloniki for the festival has its own logistics. Thessaloniki Airport "Makedonia" (SKG) is about 16 km and roughly 20 minutes by road from Aristotelous Square, per computed routing, and the airport to city centre guide covers the options, including the OASTH airport bus lines the operator lists. The reported airport bus fare is about 2 euro and a daytime taxi about 25 euro, both reported figures to confirm before travelling. Rail travellers from Athens should see the Athens to Thessaloniki guide.

A cultural note for filmgoers with broader interests: the festival overlaps a city whose Jewish history is central to its modern story, from the Sephardic arrival after 1492 to the deportations of 1943, when about 46,091 Jews were deported from the city. The Jewish Thessaloniki guide maps that heritage, and a private Jewish-heritage walking experience is one way to cover it with a guide, alongside the Jewish Museum page.

What Is The Weather Like In Thessaloniki In November?

November in Thessaloniki averages a mean daily high of 15.5 C and a mean low of 7.1 C, with 52.8 mm of rain across the month, per the HNMS Thessaloniki Mikra station record, 1959 to 2010. That is sweater-and-coat weather with regular rain, which suits a festival built around indoor screens and evening walks between them.

The station record, the only climate source for this site, puts November among the wetter months: 52.8 mm of rain over about 11.0 rain days, ahead of October's 43.0 mm and behind December's 55.1 mm, the highest monthly total in the table. Daylight walking is still comfortable by northern-European standards, but the seafront promenade is exactly that, a promenade and not a swimming beach; swimming near the city is done at Perea, about 28 minutes by road, or Epanomi, about 36 minutes, and in November that is a hardy proposition anyway.

Figures: HNMS Thessaloniki Mikra station, 1959 to 2010.

Packing for a festival trip is therefore straightforward: layers, a rain layer, and shoes that handle wet paving between venues. The full Thessaloniki weather guide carries the month-by-month table, and the best time to visit guide weighs November against the rest of the year, including the July mean high of 31.7 C that makes the festival's November slot a cooler alternative to a summer visit.

Where Should You Stay During The Thessaloniki International Film Festival?

The centre between the port and the White Tower holds the venue cluster, the Ladadika eating quarter and the seafront. Kalamaria, now reachable on the metro's Kalamaria extension inaugurated 27 August 2026, is a calmer base a short ride away. Ano Poli, inside the Byzantine walls, is the atmospheric option above the centre, uphill from the venues. The where to stay guide walks through the districts in full.

Two cost notes apply to any November stay. First, the climate resilience fee exists, is collected by the accommodation, is charged per room per night, and is lower from November to March than from April to October. Second, no hotel rate is printed anywhere on this site, so treat any nightly price you see quoted elsewhere as something to confirm at booking.

What Else Can You Do In Thessaloniki Between Screenings?

A festival day in Thessaloniki can pair morning museum visits with afternoon and evening screenings, because winter hours open the museums early and close them by mid-afternoon: the White Tower runs 08:30 to 15:30 in winter, the Museum of Byzantine Culture the same, and the Archaeological Museum 09:00 to 17:00 closed Tuesday, all per their own visiting pages.

The museum circuit is the obvious daytime backbone. The White Tower costs 8 euro full and 4 reduced under the prices in force from 1 April 2026, per the Museum of Byzantine Culture's visiting page. The Archaeological Museum and the Museum of Byzantine Culture are both 10 euro full and 5 reduced. State museums are free on 6 March, 18 April, 18 May, the last weekend of September and 28 October, the last of these falling the week before the festival opens.

Beyond museums, the free list is long. The Arch of Galerius stands in the open on Egnatia street, free to view at any hour, and the Arch of Galerius guide explains its relief panels. The Ano Poli walk, the Heptapyrgion fortress, a prison until 1989, and the views from the walls cost nothing to wander, and the free things to do guide lists more. The city's UNESCO inscription covers fifteen Paleochristian and Byzantine monuments, listed in 1988, and several, including the Church of Saint Demetrius and Hagia Sophia, are working churches, free to enter and open outside services.

Food fills the gaps between screenings, and Thessaloniki's eating reputation rests on its markets, Modiano Market and Kapani Market among them, and its grazing culture. The what to eat guide and the bougatsa page cover the essentials; this site names no individual restaurant, so follow your nose from venue to venue or ask locally.

A guided walk is the other efficient filler. A best-of-city walking tour with a local covers the waterfront, the Roman monuments and the upper town in one loop, and the Thessaloniki walking tour guide sets out the routes it follows.

What Day Trips Work Around A Festival Schedule?

Day trips from Thessaloniki work best before the festival opens or after it ends, because the programme fills the evenings and most day-trip destinations need a full day; the two headline trips are Vergina, the royal tombs of Aigai about 62 minutes away by road, and Meteora, about 228 km and roughly 2 hours 34 minutes of free-flow driving, which is a full day and never a half.

All drive times below are computed free-flow routings from Aristotelous Square, so add time for traffic, parking and stops. Halkidiki's two peninsulas, Kassandra about 78 minutes to Kallithea and Sithonia about 96 minutes to Nikiti, are the classic coastal escapes, though in November they are for walking and seafood rather than swimming. Mount Olympus at Prionia is about 86 minutes, Dion about 67, Pella about 43.

The dedicated guides carry the detail: Vergina, Pella, Meteora, Dion, Edessa and the Halkidiki overview. If a festival week leaves only one spare day, Vergina is the shortest big-hitter; Meteora, at about 228 km each way, deserves its own trip rather than a squeezed detour.

How Does The Festival Fit The Wider City Calendar?

The film festival closes an autumn sequence that runs from the Dimitria festival in October, reported at 1 to 26 October 2026, through Saint Demetrius day on 26 October and Ochi Day on 28 October, into the film programme of 5 to 15 November 2026, making late October to mid-November the densest cultural stretch of the Thessaloniki year, per the festival's site and the museum pages that carry the free-admission days.

A visitor who times the run well gets three cities in one week: a parade city on 28 October, a museum city on the free-admission day that follows, and a cinema city from 5 November. The Thessaloniki festivals guide puts the whole calendar in one place, including the September Fair, whose 90th edition ran 5 to 13 September 2026 with Japan as honoured country, past by the time November arrives.

After the festival, the city slides toward Christmas, and the Thessaloniki in winter guide picks up the thread. The December climate record, a mean high of 10.9 C and 55.1 mm of rain, is the month with the most rainfall in the station table, so the indoor-heavy rhythm a festival teaches turns out to be good training for a Thessaloniki winter.

For the evenings the festival does not fill, or for arriving days, the seafront offers one more angle on the city. A half-day sailing cruise on the Thermaic Gulf shows the whole waterfront from the water, and the Thessaloniki sunset cruise guide describes what that stretch of coast looks like from offshore.

Common Questions About The Thessaloniki International Film Festival

The festival gives November in Thessaloniki its shape, but the city supplies everything around it: a walkable centre, a seafront promenade, fifteen UNESCO-listed Byzantine monuments and a food scene that starts at the market gates. Book the room early, buy the tickets through the festival's own channel, and let the programme decide the rest.