Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
As an audience member myself, I love to be in a position where I'm trying to figure out what I am supposed to feel or if what I'm feeling is appropriate or not.
I work very closely with my co-writer, Efthimis Filippou. Ideas either start from him or me, and then the other one develops it, and it's a constant conversation.
Starting in Greece, you couldn't really say, 'I'm going to become a film-maker.' A 15-year-old boy in Greece in the '80s and '90s? There was nothing like that happening.
The first time I was paid was with 'The Lobster,' because with the Greek films, we just had to pay ourselves - work for free while making commercials in order to survive.
Rebellion is not always the right thing. Following the rules is not always the right thing. You have to think for yourself and identify the things that do not work for you.
For me, filmmaking is not about making statements but about exposing human behavior so people are eager enough to start thinking on their own and make their own assumptions.
No studio picks up the phone after seeing 'Dogtooth' and goes, like, 'We have the next superhero movie.' Though if one did, that would be an interesting studio to work with.
The most important thing is to allow gaps and openings for people to make up their own minds - I don't want my film to be pretending to have one important truth to tell anyone.
I am not interested in representing reality. Actually, I am interested in representing reality, but that doesn't mean a naturalistic approach, which I think is kind of impossible.
I did have a lot of years watching and appreciating dance and theater and all of those kind of things, and it has informed the way that I work with actors and the way I approach things.
I think it's been obvious from the beginning that my projects are not going to be something that people already have in mind. You can't be thinking about such things when you create something.
All the talented and smart actors, they get it: as soon as it comes out of their mouth, they know if it's right or wrong. If the writing has a particular voice, they get it, and they can hit it.
Personal relationships, mood, chance, or anything like that can actually affect people's decisions, and when they're in a position of power, their capriciousness can affect the fate of a nation.
Even today, I'm not sure why I make films or what makes me want films. I think it's other people's films. Whenever I see a really great film, I think, 'I want to make a film like that.' And then I never do.
I always loved films, and when I decided to go to film school, it was with the excuse that I would go into making commercials, because that would be a proper profession, and people wouldn't think I was crazy.
I used to be quite negative about going back to Greece and making something, but there is a certain kind of freedom that I've experienced while I was making films in Greece that is hard to replicate elsewhere.
I don't have time to read much. I'm trying to read 'The Brothers Karamazov' again, for a year now - I keep getting halfway, and then there's a lot of work, and I forget it, and I have to go back to the beginning.
I just do things that I'm interested in making and work with the people I'm interested in working with, and it's very important for me to maintain the creative control because, otherwise, I just don't want to do it.
There are things to love about filmmaking in Greece. People are generous: If you get along well with others, the people around you will give more than they might otherwise be willing to give, more than they're supposed to.
I wouldn't know what to say about something that worked in a perfect way, so I guess, in everything, I try to find what doesn't work and expose it and then see how it relates to people and their stories and their character.
'The Lobster,' at some point, was my most accessible film. Then I made 'The Killing of a Sacred Deer,' which turned out to be not as accessible as 'The Lobster.' It was the film I wanted to make and the story I wanted to tell.
You tend to be more attentive when you shoot on film because, you know, it costs more, and everybody needs to be focused when you're filming something. Everybody considers it something valuable and precious, so everybody's focused.
In any case, I would never make a film that was only one thing. Even if it's my warmest, most romantic film, I still want it to have the more cynical view of things, showing the irony and absurdity of things that we consider normal.
I am calm but on the outside, mostly. When I'm on a film set, the stress is so humongous that I'm dying inside - I'm extremely stressed, but I do try, and... well, I don't try. I think it's my natural reaction to not externalize things.
I never think about it much, the visual aspect of it, until we start making the movie. I don't really think about it when we write. When we finish, and I start putting the film together, and we pick the locations, I do think about that a lot.
The way I work, and the material we work with, I think if you analyze too much and have too many specific ideas, it just becomes a little bit too superficial, and then performances might become too self-conscious and project relatively narrow things.
By employing a certain sense of humor, you essentially get more serious about things and show conflict more effectively than if you were overly dramatic or only violent because that's a one-way approach that just forces audiences to watch something appalling.
I think you can be much truer to real emotions and reality by creating something that on the surface seems artificial but, by then putting everything together in the end, is much more impactful than trying to use realism in every individual element of the film.
It's hard for me to find a script that's perfectly suited to me, so even if it's a good script, I'll still have to work on it with someone and shape it, making it the film that I want to make. So in that respect, I prefer to do the stuff that I've generated anyway.
The actors bring their own stuff and thoughts, and most of the time, I don't want to know what they are. It allows me to have more distance and observe what they're doing without having the knowledge of what they have in their minds, so I can see clearly how that feels to me.
We were fortunate enough to shoot 'Alps' - write the script and shoot it - right after 'Dogtooth' premiered in Cannes. So we didn't just sit around and wait to figure out what to do because 'Dogtooth' was successful. We just wanted to make another film fast, so we just went ahead and did it.
I think there's all these unknown things you can tap into when you just leave things open, and nothing is forbidden. Then you allow yourself to mold that thing that has been created by freedom and spontaneity and flexibility. That's why I avoid limiting performances of actors and characters.
Provocative... I used to be defensive about it, but in the end, I realised it's exactly right. It's what we're trying to do - to provoke thought and discussion and, you know, shake people up to start thinking about things in a different way. I'm interested in messing with what they think is the norm.
All of us have been through relationships; there have been periods of time when we've been single. It's something that everyone experiences. It's a matter of making that observation and then start to ask questions about it: Why is it like that? And why do we feel that? And why are we organized this way? Isn't there any other way?
Even before the economic crisis in Greece there was no structure for making films - no proper industry, and the structure didn't help filmmakers at all. So filmmakers had to help each other, and make very, very low-budget films. Now with the crisis, things got a bit worse, but filmmakers are still going to be making films. It didn't change that much.
I'm planning some films in the U.K., and it will have pros and cons. It takes a lot more time to set up a film in the U.K., because you can't rely on much. In Greece, friends show up and bring what they can and you make the film. Well, that's a bit simpler than how it really is. But when you make a film with proper industries, it takes more time to synch all these things.
It's true that there are younger people making films, and there are different kinds of films. This has created some attention in what's coming out of Greece, and people like to find a way to name this new ethnic cinema. It's not like there's a movement, or a common philosophy in making these films. They're just things that happened, and now people are paying attention to it.
I was making commercials. That's how I learned the craft. That was the marketing part of it: directing commercial for TV. It wasn't the most common thing to become a filmmaker in Greece. I started by saying I was interested in marketing and have a proper job in advertising and commercials. Basically, I studied film to learn how to do marketing, and commercials. As I studied film I learned I'd be interested in making films instead of commercials.