We often talk and write about how difficult it is to start your own film production in Greece; not only as a creator-director, who usually has to wait up to ten years to see his vision – often faltering – realized, but also as a producer who doesn’t have a lot of funds and a constant influx of money to support his actions. In this sense, the success of Giorgos Karnavas and the Heretic is great, who last week presented the first film by Vassilis Katsupis in an English-language production and starring the great Willem Dafoe at the Berlin festival “Inside”. .

The American actor plays an art thief who breaks into an ultra-luxury high-tech apartment in New York City to get rid of expensive paintings. However, a miscalculation will leave him trapped in a huge attic for several months, putting his physical and mental endurance to the test. But how did we get Dafoe to stand in front of the camera as a rookie Katsupis? “Vasilis and I have been friends for many years. We started working on the project more seriously in 2015, when I also started to take a keen interest in the English part to understand how it works both creatively and financially. We originally had this fantastic idea of ​​Basil, which basically takes “The Castaway” and puts it in Times Square. We presented it at the Greek Film Festival in Los Angeles and the response was excellent,” Giorgos Karnavas tells us.

Then came the eminent screenwriter Ben Hopkins, who also wrote the screenplay, which fell into Dafoe’s hands in 2018. “When he read it, he reacted very positively. I think he clearly saw the challenge of playing this character. If you get to know him professionally, you understand that everything related to physical games is of great interest to him. We were already featured last year at the Tribeca Festival, when he chaired the jury that awarded the prize to the Son of Wisdom (ss Elina Psykou and also Heretic). Finally, we met in London with Vasilis and Ben, we talked for two hours, he liked it, and he put his signature, which became decisive for the rest. And we, for our part, did what he was promised: the schedule, funding, certain issues of staging – everything was done as we agreed. This is a big capital for us and for the future.”

Of course, even with the assistance of the highly experienced Defoe, the path to the realization of the production was not easy. “We’re talking about a rookie director, a rookie producer (preferably in a studio project), and a rookie production designer from the VR side that are used here. Despite everything, on the route we met good people who helped us a lot. Also, one of the things that Vassilis did brilliantly was to prepare himself and what all the participants had to know down to the last detail. For three years he was engaged in research, “digging”, asking questions to collect information. Of course, in the end, many decisions were made instinctively. Perhaps the most important of these was to build this huge 800 square meter complex. It helped us a lot cinematically, we were able to change scenery in a few minutes and continue filming. In fact, we could even finish 2-3 days earlier than we originally planned.”

Another major problem with the production was the art direction, which appears in the film and is essentially Willem Dafoe’s “co-star”. In fact, as Vasilis Katsupis recently told K, for him, works of art symbolize the presence of the owner of the house himself. “Basically, what has not been done in cinema yet, as far as I know, is the collection of a film that is also a “character”. Conceptually, this gives you many different levels. Every time a piece is framed, it “talks” to the state of mind of the protagonist,” Karnavas notes for his part and continues: “At first we tried to contact well-known collectors to provide us with replicas of their collection, but we kept bumping into on the walls. Here, too, acquaintances and international networks, which we have been striving for over the years, have played a big role. Thanks to them, we got to know Leonardo Di Gazi, an outstanding art curator capable of negotiating on the international art scene. Reading the script, he gradually found works that could fit together and at the same time make the whole thing look like a real collection.

This is a matter of strategy, not just funding. Have you seen a certain “culture” or a serious export product being created in our country?

However, this was only the first step, since the fixing, cinematic projection, and reworking (as required by the script) of modern works of art is a rather complicated process. “The biggest and most complex issue is about rights, intellectual, moral and other, especially since everyone knows from the very beginning that works will at some point be destroyed or turned into utilitarian objects by the main character. I was very afraid of the latter, but perhaps in the end it became our great advantage. Such and such an artist heard: “We really want your painting to be at this point and symbolize the following, but the problem is that Willem Dafoe will have to destroy it.” And the answer was usually: “Of course, I really want to!”. In fact, three of the 27 loft designs were created specifically for this film. Until now, paintings by the Belgian Lik Timan, one of the greatest living artists in the world, as well as Maurizio Cattelan, have survived. All exact copies created by artists’ workshops.”

In recent years, The Heretic by Giorgos Karnavas and Kontovrakis has been a success, from the aforementioned Son of Wisdom to the Palme d’Or-nominated Ruben Östlund’s The Triangle of Sorrows, on which he co-wrote. -director. What is her secret? “The main thing for us is extraversion. We have traveled a lot, worked and are still working, trying to make only those films that we like, regardless of the genre. I for example At the same time I was involved in “Magnetic Fields” and “Inside”, two Greek debuts, completely different from each other, one with very little money, and the other with millions and Willem Dafoe. For me, this is the happiness of a producer. We also wanted to create a brand to be not just Karnavas or Kontovrakis, but Heretic with its own identity recognizable in the projects we take on.”

As a member of the domestic film ecosystem, we finally ask the Greek producer if the activities of the National Center for Audiovisual Media and Communications (EKOME) and its financial incentives have helped him in recent years. “Obviously not as much as it could. This is a matter of strategy, not just funding. It has been estimated that private Greek television has spent around a billion euros since its inception on the production of films and series. Have you seen the creation of a specific “culture” or a serious export product? To do eg. ten series for sale abroad. What you can see from Inside is that with a good idea and the right project, you make a difference. We hope this will mobilize people and we are willing to share our experience openly. We urgently need Greek projects, whether in Greek or in another language, that are public-oriented, ambitious and at the same time mobilize us. To make thrillers, to make good science fiction, things we don’t know about, we all do dramas. And we as producers to grow. For me, the biggest achievement with “Inside” is that I made a film where only 7% came from Greece and everything else came from outside.”

“Inside” hits Greek cinemas next Thursday, March 9th.