The intricate, versatile and thrilling visual artist Stefanos Rokos maintains a longstanding passionate relation with cinema, expressed in a multitude of ways: through a series of works that have accompanied films, as well as in the worldview and the origins of his own art. Having all the above in mind, the commission and undertaking the visual identity of the upcoming 66th Thessaloniki International Film Festival was definitely no surprise.

Stefanos Rokos created two works titled Plot Twist I & II: (Precious moments of inspiration and peace) for the posters of the 66th Thessaloniki International Film Festival. The works will be showcased for the first time from September 18th to September 22nd, 2025, within the framework of Art Athina, at the R1 Pavillion of Zoumboulakis Galleries. The final outcome is no other than two overloaded pluralistic painting works alluding to the end credits in movies. An abundance of information and names, both in front of and behind the cameras, flash before our eyes, foregrounding the scale of each production.

Laying down the posters of the 66th TIFF, Stefanos Rokos stresses his powerful ties not only with cinema as a whole, but also with the Thessaloniki International Film Festival. “Am I allowed to say that, at least in a sense, I feel to be a part of cinema? I think of a story, I transform into a script in my mind, I select my main cast, I build characters, I place them under the light, the shadow or in a limbo between the two, and I create my own powerful images out of an inner need. In my painting works, everything is still, yet movement is all around, there’s no soundtrack, yet a musicality can be discerned. And their viewing lasts from a mere second up to many hours long, according to the viewer’s desires. I have watched films throughout my entire life, cinema is a source of both entertainment and inspiration for me. I have not missed out on a single Thessaloniki International Film Festival edition for the past 15 years, and I have always felt being a part of it, even if it was not actually the case,” he points out.

The two works are accompanied by a duo of short animation films, directed by Stefanos Rokos and Fokion Xenos, both scored by Jim Sclavunos, which will serve as the official spots of the 66th TIFF, scheduled to be unveiled to the audience in October 2025. Ιn the above-mentioned animation films two props take center stage, a telephone device and an avocado, whereas the two scenes go down in opposite directions: the first is crowned with an utter success, while total disaster looms nearby in the second one. Stefanos Rokos goes on to add: “In all creative stages of every art work, success and failure are intertwined, always passing the torch to one another. This is common knowledge to us all, as a part of the creative process that serves the purpose of art. As soon as the idea is materialized, the artists wish for this adventure they went through to turn into a positive outcome. However, the greatest plot twist arrives when the final work oozes a sense of true inspiration and peace to the eyes of the beholder,”  he concludes.