1-10 November 2013
MISS VIOLENCE PRESS CONFERENCE
Alexandros Avranas and actors Eleni Roussinou and Sissy Toumasi gave a press conference on Monday November 4, to discuss Miss Violence, the film that received two important distinctions at the recent Venice International Film Festival -Avranas won the Silver Lion for Best Director and Themis Panou the Volpi Cup for Best Actor. The press conference was held in the context of the 54th Thessaloniki International Film Festival.
Welcoming the film’s contributors, TIFF director Dimitri Eipides said: “Every time I watch a good movie, I celebrate. For me, a fine film is an amazing event. Even more so when the film happens to be a Greek production, like Miss Violence. After watching the film I immediately felt I could trust the work of Alexandros Avranas and believed in his talent. This is flawless filmmaking, an all-around accomplished movie. I immediately realized its great potential.” Mr Eipides commented also on the film’s distinctions at the Venice Festival. “As soon as the filmmakers submitted it, the film took everybody by storm. I was in Toronto when I received a phone-call at 2 in the morning informing me that they had won the prize in Venice; ten minutes later I received another call informing me they had won the second one. I was thrilled not only for this entirely worthy film but for Greek cinema in general,” said Mr Eipides.
Taking the floor, Alexandros Avranas thanked Mr Eipides, noting that “he was the first person who saw the film; we were overjoyed and encouraged by his positive reaction. Dimitri Eipides is an immensely important personality for the cinematic world.”
Asked about the secrecy surrounding the project before its Venice premiere, Mr Avranas acknowledged that this was intentional: “We wanted to eliminate leaks; we trusted no-one, because often, if you communicate something, this something loses its energy. When we felt ready we gave everything to the Press.”
Answering the often-posed question of whether his film is shocking, he said: “The film itself is not shocking. The reality it depicts is. And many times, society is not ready to accept those films.” Commenting on whether he is worried about the audience’s reception, he said: “I don’t make movies for festivals, I make them for audiences. I want to tell a story, a truth of some kind, and bring audiences back to the theaters - I believe this is my responsibility as a filmmaker.”
Eleni Roussinou said she was happy to have had the chance to work with Alexandros Avranas, a filmmaker she had always admired, and with her talented fellow actors. “I was not scared when I read the script. This is a chilling issue, and the film allows us to approach and examine it.” Ms Roussinou admitted that filming was not a painless experience. “All the scenes were very hard for me, especially the brief silences. This entire film was a great challenge.” Asked whether Alexandros Avranas is as demanding a director as rumor has it, she replied: “It’s not like that. Alexandros tries hard to “extract” the things he wants from his actors. I did not feel tormented — everything he did was for the film’s benefit. Even when I cried at home at night, I would be ok the next day.”
For Ms Toumasi, the important thing was that Alexandros Avranas “had something specific and very clear in his mind. The script was indeed difficult, but the director provided great guidance and we all felt confident and secure.”
Commenting on working with the child actors of his film, Alexandros Avranas said that he was never worried, despite warnings to the opposite. “It took me more than eight months to cast the children, because we have all seen otherwise solid films being destroyed by children performances. But I was not worried. I knew I had to treat them like young adults. On the set we are a family, just like any other family. The children knew their roles from the start, and we had psychologists advising us. We knew we were doing the right thing. The children wanted to know the truth, as they always do in real life as well. It would be better if we were less overprotective.”
Asked about the international distinctions of Greek films, Mr Avranas said: “The international press distinguished between Miss Violence and other films, like Dogtooth and Attenberg. Our film is totally realistic; there are no symbolisms, no allegories or surreal elements. For me, Miss Violence could not have been more different from these other films. What I do see is that Greek directors are united in the face of this crisis, this moral crisis. Our effort is to make sense of it, and this effort brings us closer to people. I wanted to avoid moralizing in my film; My intention was to ask: why don’t those people just walk out the door?”
Will these international distinctions help the emergence of a new wave of Greek cinema, a “weird greek cinema”, as some critics have called it? “I reject those labels on the back of the success of 2.5 films. Enough with the labels. We have had enough glorification and embellishment since the 1980s,” Mr Avranas said.
Commenting on the aesthetic qualities of the film, he explained that he was not interested in giving it a distinctive Greek tone. “This does not mean I have a problem with the Greek national identity; I simply wanted to make a universal film that would resonate with an international audience.”
Asked whether the film’s subject is related to the problems of Greek society, Mr Avranas said: “Greece is related to the rest of the world, so since the film is related to the world, it is related to Greece as well. Since I live in Greece, I subconsciously absorb the national gloom and hopelessnes, and the film naturally reflects that.”
Mr Avranas said he was not worried about the future of his film at the box office. “I am in no particular agony, because I trust the Greek audience. I believe my film will resonate with the audience. I am not expecting a standing ovation, of course, because Miss Violence is a chilling film. But I do believe that Greeks are now ready to hear the truth, they want to know what is really going on.”
The filmmaker also revealed that his next project is a love story.
The film is part of the “Open Horizons” section, one of the actions of this year’s Festival financed by the European Union - European Regional Development Fund, in the framework of the Regional Programme for Central Macedonia - 2007-2013.
