Christos Nikou was born in Athens in 1984.
His short film KM screened in over 40 international film festivals, including those of Rotterdam, Stockholm, Palm Springs, Sydney, Tallinn Black Nights, Interfilm Berlin, while it was named Best Short Film at Motovun Film Festival in Croatia.
For the past ten years, he has worked as assistant director on many feature films including Dogtooth by Yorgos Lanthimos and Before Midnight by Richard Linklater.
The title of his first feature film is Apples.
Born in 1990, Fokion is a Director/ Designer from Athens, Greece. As an animation filmmaker he is interested in telling playful and bold stories that focus on visual wit and emotional honesty. Placing a particular emphasis on colour and form, he seeks to combine practical and digital techniques to create unique emerging visuals. Heatwave, his MA graduation film produced while studying at the National Film and Television School, has received prizes in multiple prestigious film festivals such as the Edinburgh International Film Festival, Cinekid, the Athens International Film Festival, AnimaSyros and many others. In addition, Heatwave has been officially selected for more than 70 film festivals around the globe, including Annecy International Animation Film Festival, Anima Mundi, Encounters Short Film and Animation Festival, the London Short Film Festival and the London International Animation Festival , while it was shortlisted for the Student BAFTA in Los Angeles. Recently, it was named Best Student Short film by the Royal Television Society.
Manos Papadakis was born and raised in Heraklion of Crete. He studied Business Administration at the University of Macedonia and Film and Television Direction at the Lykourgos Stavrakos School in Athens where he still lives and works. He started as a producer of short films (Sunday, Possibly Strangers, -1) and then turned towards scriptwriting (-1, Hem). His first directorial work (“The meaning of August”, 26΄) awaits its international premiere while he won an honorary distinction of sound (43rd Drama Festival) and best male performance (43rd Drama International Short Film Festival, Athens International Film Festival 2020).
He tries to release as many of the stories living in his head in order to prevent it from exploding. So far, he has been fairly successful. He has always been interested in the problematic of violence and the various forms it can assume. Three years after the birth of his son, he is more and more interested in the meaning we ascribe to the term ‘family’. His stories are leaning increasingly more in that direction.
Born in London and raised in Athens, Kyveli Short graduated from King’s College London in 2014. From 2015 to 2018, she worked at Anemon Productions in Athens, as the lead production manager on the documentary Dolphin Man (2017), directed by Lefteris Charitos, which was the recipient of two Hellenic Film Academy Awards. As a freelancer, she is the Associate Producer of Thanasis Neofotistos’ short fiction film Patision Avenue (Venice 2018), as well as Thelyia Petraki’s hybrid short film Bella (Visions du Réel 2020). She is currently collaborating with Maria Drandaki (Homemade Films) on the development of Konstantina Kotzamani’s debut feature film, Titanic Ocean. Kyveli is also co-director of the San Francisco Greek Film Festival, the longest-running Greek film festival in the United States.
Sofia Georgovassili is an awarded actress and director based in Athens, Greece. Her short film Preparation, which she directed and wrote the script for, had its world premiere at Toronto International Film Festival 2017 and travelled to numerous festivals all around the world. It also won her the award of Best Newcomer Director at Drama International Short Film Festival 2017 and received a special jury mention at the Athens International Film Festival. She is currently developing her first feature film under the title Mignon, with which she participated in the Torino ScriptLab 2018. The film also won an ARTEKino International Prize at the CineLink section of the Sarajevo International Film Festival and is supported by a CINEREACH development grant. Her film Memoir of a veering storm will premiere at the 72nd Berlin International Film Festival – Berlinale (2022).
Stratis Chatzielenoudas lives and works in Athens as a scriptwriter and film-director. His short films have been presented in many international film festivals. He is an alumnus of the programmes for emerging directors Sarajevo Talents and IDFAcademy. His debut feature documentary Back to the top won the Audience Award and the ERT Award at the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival and has screened in many international film festivals (Thessaloniki International Film Festival, Tirana International Film Festival, Los Angeles Greek Film Festival, BOSIFEST International Film Festival). He is currently developing his first feature fiction film and his second feature documentary film.
Born in 1985, he studied documentary film in London and graduated with distinction from Brunel University London in 2012. He works in film, television and art projects, as a director, assistant director, cinematographer and editor. He has collaborated with institutions, museums, festivals, production companies and television stations in Greece and abroad (Greek National Opera – Stavros Niarchos Foundation, National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens, Onassis Foundation, Sadler’s Wells, Benaki Museum, the Venice Biennale, Ibsen Awards Festival, London Review of Books, BBC, CNN, Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation, etc.). His films are rooted in the art of documentary and avant-garde cinema and have been screened at international festivals and online platforms (International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, La Nuu Phtography Festival in Barcelona, thespace.org (BBC), greatbigstory.com (CNN ), etc.)
He has directed the 12-episode documentary series Lighthouses (2016-17) for Cosmote History channel, a major satellite Greek broadcaster. Orfeas also directs concept videos for cultural institutions and design agencies, which have been featured at the Benaki Museum, Stavros Niarchos Cultural Centre, Onassis Stegi and the Athens Concert Hall. In 2016, he completed Into the Centre of the Wheel, his first feature documentary, which premiered at the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival and was acquired for Cinema and TV distribution from Athens-based Neo Films.
His short films have received top prize from the Panhellenic Association of Film Critics and premiered at the Oscar-qualifying Zinebi International Festival of Documentary and Short Film Bilbao, Spain, while he has won a short film pitch award by the Athens International Film Festival. His graduation film, Small Talk (2007), won a Royal Television Society Award in the UK and was awarded first prize at the Drama International Short Film Festival in Greece.
He has studied psychology in Scotland. In 2004, he moved to England to study Film and video at the University for the Creative Arts and Screenwriting at the London Film School (2008). He is a 2019 Berlinale Talent Alumni.
Kostis Charamountanis is a film director born in 1994 in Athens, Greece. He has directed five films in total, the most acclaimed being Kioku Before Summer Comes (2018) and the most recent Anthology of a Butterfly (2020). Ηe is presently working on the script of his debut feature film, Kyuka Journeying to the Moon through the Endless Sea, which earned him a place at the MIDPOINT Feature Launch 2020 at the beginning of the year.
Dimitris Anagnostou was born in 1984. He studied Chemistry at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and filmmaking at the Stavrakos Film and Television School in Athens; at the University Paris 1 Sorbonne; and at the University Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle, with a scholarship from the Greek State Scholarship Foundation (I.K.Y).
Since 2016, he teaches the courses The Aesthetics of Cinema and Theory of Montage at Stavrakos Film and Television School.
His first short film, Mare Nostrum (2020) had its world premiere at the international competition section of the Vienna Shorts International Short Film Festival. He is currently completing the production of the short film Lumen, directed by Eirini Tzoulia, and preparing his second short film, Atopia.
Born in Athens in 1979, Yannis Veslemes studied film. He has directed feature films, shorts, music videos and tv adverts. In 2014, his feature debut Norway premièred at Karlovy Vary before screening at dozens of festivals and securing distribution deals all around the world. Within Greece, the film won a series of distinctions (five Hellenic Film Academy Awards), and enjoyed a successful run in cinemas, reintroducing Greek audiences to midnight screenings. In 2018, he was invited by the American production company Drafthouse Films to take part in the feature-length anthology The Field Guide to Evil (produced by Tim League & Ant Timpson), which premièred at South by Southwest and was distributed in the US by N.EO.N.(theaters) and Universal (home video). He is currently in pre-production for his first English-language film, She Loved Blossoms More (with which he participated in Sundance Lab Istanbul). As a composer (Felizol) he has released records on many international labels (Optimo Music, Byrd Out, Invisible Inc and Inner Ear) and has composed soundtracks for numerous films (including Tale 52, Wednesday 04:45, Norway, Suntan, Thread, Cosmic Candy, Third Kind, Electric Swan). He is a member of the Hellenic Film Academy and a curator of The Lost Highway of Greek Cinema club.
Phaedra Vokali graduated (with distinction) from the Marketing and Communication Department of the Athens University of Economic and Business in 2005 and in 2008 she obtained an MA in Film Studies from University College London, where she studied under a scholarship from the Greek State Scholarship Foundation (I.K.Y. ). In 2009, she attended the MA program Research in Architecture: Architectural Design – Space – Culture in the School of Architecture of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA). Before entering the production terrain, she has worked in distribution as a buyer. She has also worked as head of programming of the Athens International Film Festival, and editor-in-chief of Cinema Magazine, the only film magazine in Greece. She has been working as a producer in Marni Films since October 2013 and she is an alumnus of the EAVE Producers Network and the Torino Film Lab Lab (Script & Pitch, Framework). Her first feature film production, Suntan by Argyris Papadimitropoulos, was awarded Best International Feature Film in Edinburgh International Film Festival and was nominated for the 2016 LUX prize as well as selected for the 2016 European Film Awards. It also landed in IndieWire’s list of 20 best films of 2016 from around the world. Her second feature, Afterlov, by Stergios Paschos, premiered in Locarno 2016 where it received the Best Film Award by the Youth Jury, while it has also won prizes at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, Transilvania International Film Festival and elsewhere. She is currently editing the first short film she has written and directed, entitled Enomena.
Vasilis Chrysanthopoulos is the co-founder and head producer of the Greek production company PLAYS2PLACE. His work is dedicated to developing and producing original, imaginative stories addressed to international audiences, with a special focus on discovering and promoting new talents and pioneering voices. His credits include the award-winning festival hit Miss Violence (Silver Lion for Best Director and Coppa Volpi for Best Actor at Venice International Film Festival 2013). Vasilis is a member of EAVE, EDN and Cannes Producers Network. He is an alumnus of the training initiatives EAVE Producers, EAVE Marketing, EAVE B’est, MFI Script 2 Film, MIDPOINT TV Launch and MIDPOINT Cold Open, and has participated in more than 30 film co-production and pitching events. He has received more than 20 development and production awards for his film and TV projects, including the MIDPOINT C21 Award, which he won as an emerging European TV series producer during Sarajevo International Film Festival’s Industry Days 2017. In August 2019, the international magazine Screen International featured his profile in its article ‘Five producers to know from Southeast Europe’. Since 2020, Vasilis is a faculty member of ANT1 Scriptwriting School in Greece, where he teaches production for films and TV series.
Thanasis Neofotistos is a film director, writer and architect from Greece. He is an alumnus of the Berlinale Talents programme and Head Programmer for the International Student Competition at the Drama International Short Film Festival. His short film, Patision Avenue (13’-2018), premiered at the 75th Venice Film Festival, won 3 awards during the 41st Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival (Jury, Canal+, EFA) and was selected for screening in more than 60 top-tier film festivals. His film Route-3 (13’-2019) premiered at the competition section of the 44th Toronto International Film Festival; Greek School Prayer (20’-2014) was his successful film school thesis (Golden Dionysus at Drama), while Sparkling Candles (9’-2019), his LGBTQ+ sparkling short film, premiered at the 43rd Frameline Film Festival. Currently, he is in the process of securing funds for his first-debut feature film, Peter and the Wolf, which he envisions as a dark, coming-of-age fairytale. The film is supported by the Greek Film Centre and the EU’s Media programme and has been part of important script development programmes such First-Films-First (Goethe Institute); the Mediterranean Film Institute’s (MFI) Script 2 Film workshop; and the Script Station workshop, part of the Sarajevo Talents programme. His next feature film project, “Wild Boars”, is currently in development under the auspices of Torino Film Lab and the MFI.
Kleoniki Stanich is a visual artist and filmmaker. She graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in 2018 with her film Kappa, which was nominated for a GRA award, selected for various screenings and shows and broadcasted on Dutch TV. She writes, produces and directs short, experimental fiction films that question social relationships and communication and showcase everyday life’s surrealist undertones, while her work explores and engages with the concept of the female gaze. Kleoniki is a supporter of the idea that art can help forge communal bonds and participates in initiatives that put it into practice.
I define myself in the Present, within its fluidity, as a transcendental subjectivity whose role is to be expressed or lost with the utmost precision, passing from one to the other, recording static or time-delayed images and emphasizing the process of construction and the activity of the eye itself. Aiming to build a meta-existential scenario or view capable of reiterating the theory of the gaze, dramatizing the mechanisms of vision or objectifying the movements of the eye, while reflecting the mental state of (co)trivial (A), always with a reflective mode entirely re-invented, ambiguous and repetitive. I wonder what the different (‘A’s) are doing at this critical moment and whom am I talking about?
Efi is a photographer-filmmaker (Hellenic Cinema and Television School Stavrakos) and founder of kammerspiel_project space in Athens. She has been awarded the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS (2021).
Born in 1984 and raised in Athens. While studying communication and media at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, he realised cinema was his calling. He graduated from the London Film School’s MA in Filmmaking. He has been awarded the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS (2021). He has directed the short films Iceberg, Invisible and Iskioma, all of which have been screened and won prizes in international film festivals. He is currently developing the feature film Five Murders Without a Cause; and the crime drama 10 Bullets, the first Greek TV series project selected for an international training program (MIDPOINT TV Launch 2017) and an international TV market (MIPTV Canneseries In Development 2019), and also the first to receive development funding from Creative Europe (Media strand). At the moment, he is pre-producing his new short film entitled Cleaner.
Zacharias Mavroeidis is an Athens-based film director, writer and scriptwriter. He studied architecture at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, theatre at the Royal Higher College of Performing Arts (RESAD) in Madrid, scriptwriting at the International School of Film and TV (EICTV) in Cuba and filmmaking at New York College in Athens. He is a Berlinale and Sarajevo Talent Campus alumni. Since 2015 he has been teaching scriptwriting in Athens. He participated in the edited volumes What does art teach us? (FRMK editions, 2020, ed. Katerina Iliopoulou) and The lost highway of Greek cinema (Nefeli editions, 2019, ed. Aphrodite Nikolaidou) and wrote opinion articles for 10% magazine. In 2014 his first novel Efta psiches sto stoma was published in Greece, and is currently in development as a feature animation film. His debut feature, entitled The Guide (2011), screened in more than 20 international film festivals. His documentary Across her body (2018) premiered at the International Competition section of the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival and received a mention at the Burgas International Film Festival. His sophomore feature, entitled Defunct (2019), won the Young Jury and the Audience awards in the international competition section of the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, the Best Film award at the 2020 International Film Festival KineNova and the Best Script award at the 2020 Hellenic Film Academy Iris awards. He has been awarded the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS (2021).
Dimitris Nakos is based in Athens, Greece, where he works as a director, screenwriter and producer. He holds a Phd in Cinema and Philosophy from Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences in Athens and a postgraduate degree in the field of cultural studies also from Panteion University; and is a graduate of the Department of History and Archeology of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. He has directed 14 short films, which have been screened in many festivals, receiving a number of awards. In addition, he has served as producer and assistant director in more than 50 productions (short and feature films and documentaries). He is an alumni of the Torino Film Lab, the MFI 2 Script Lab and the AlbaScript+ by Balkan Film Market, and a member of the Hellenic Film Academy. He has been awarded the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS (2021).
He is currently in pre-production for his first feature film, Meat.
Glykeria Patramani was born in Trikala in 1982. She graduated from the department of History and Archaeology of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and holds a Diploma in Acting and a Master’s degree in Theatrical Studies from the University Paris 8. She has participated in the Sarajevo Talent Campus and has collaborated with the Mediterranean Film Institute, the Kids. Kino Lab and the Less is More programme as a script editor. She has been awarded the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship by ARTWORKS (2021). Her short stories have appeared in several literary magazines, in Greece and internationally.
Filmography
2021 Pink Mountain, short, dir. Thomas Künstler (post-production)
2021 Behind Waves, short, dir. Valentin Stejskal (post-production)
2021 The Dog, short, dir. Konstantinos Demis (pre-preproduction)
2021 Luna Park, dir. Florenc Papas (pre-production)
2021 Markos, dir. Thomas Künstler (development)
2020 Daniel 16, dir. Dimitris Koutsiabasakos
2016 Silent Witness, documentary, dir. Dimitris Koutsiabasakos
2014 Becoming an actor, documentary, dir. Dimitris Koutsiabasakos