SPOTLIGHT: ANGELIKI PAPOULIA

Dogtooth – by Yorgos Lanthimos (4K Remastered)

The father, the mother and their three kids live at the outskirts of a city. There is a tall fence surrounding the house. The kids have never been outside that fence. They are being educated, entertained, bored and exercised in the manner that their parents deem appropriate, without any influence from the outside world. They believe that the airplanes flying over are toys and that zombies are small yellow flowers. The only person allowed to enter the house is Christina. She works as a security guard at the father’s business. The father arranges her visits to the house, in order to appease the sexual urges of the son. The whole family is fond of her, especially the eldest daughter. One day, Christina gives her as a present a headband that has stones that glow in the dark and asks for something in return.

Yorgos Lanthimos

Yorgos Lanthimos was born in 1973 in Athens. He began his career directing music videos, commercials, and plays before moving into feature films. His 2005 debut, Kinetta, was followed by his breakthrough; the outrageous dark comedy Dogtooth (2009). Dogtooth won the Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes and was nominated for an Oscar as foreign-language film. His next work, Alps (2011) was followed by The Lobster (2015), starring Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz, which won the Jury Prize at Cannes. He followed this with The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017). His most celebrated films are The Favourite (2018), a wickedly absurd historical drama starring Olivia Colman (who won an Oscar), Emma Stone, and Rachel Weisz, and Poor Things (2023). The former received five Golden Globe nominations; Poor Things was nominated for seven, winning as best musical or comedy and Emma Stone as musical/comedy actress. Kinds of Kindness and Bugonia are his latest films.

 

Angeliki Papoulia was born in Athens, Greece. She is an actress and theater director. She is internationally acclaimed for her starring roles in Yorgos Lanthimos’ films Dogtooth – which was nominated for an Oscar – Alps, and the director’s first English-speaking full-length film The Lobster, which was nominated for an Oscar award as well. Her career in cinema also includes many other roles in full-length films, such as Human Flowers of Flesh by Helena Wittmann, To a Land Unknown by Mahdi Fleifel, The Miracle of the Sargasso Sea by Syllas Tzoumerkas and Arcadia by Yorgos Zois, among others. She has been a jury member at the international film festivals of Locarno, Sarajevo, Istanbul, Karlovy Vary and also at the Berlinale. In 2004, she co-founded the Blitz Theatre Group. She has written, co-directed and acted in all the group’s performances. The group has presented its theatrical projects in various European festivals and theaters. Lately, she has co-directed theatrical plays at Luzerner Theater and Schauspielhaus Zürich, in Switzerland.