OUR Willem Dafoe can only consume art. He is a robber who is locked in a luxury loft in NY where there are many works of art of incalculable value, and there is almost no food, and even less water.

This is a claustrophobic survival journey in the form of a cool commentary (what to do with the “golden cage” when you are starving?) we look at “Inside”, his first feature film Vasilis Katsupis, a Greek film of an international nature, since it is a production that is distributed internationally through it. focus features, starred in Eau de Toilette and in it one of the most recognizable American actors of recent decades puts on a one-man show. And the premiere of the film, which is now also going to Greek cinemas, took place a few weeks ago in Berlinale.

While the film inevitably rings the lockdown bells we’ve all been through recently, it’s an idea the director has been hatching ever since. 2010 and finally managed to actually materialize during the coronavirus period with a film crew go to Germany for filming.

In “From Within” art is Willem Dafoe’s partner, it’s pretty much the only thing his character Nemo can interact with. That is why the works that we see in it – paintings, sculptures, even video installations – carefully selected collection specifically for the needs of the film, with Italian editor Leonardo Bigaggi.

Since this is ostensibly a private collection, the pre-existing works loaned to the film were in turn obtained from private collections. In addition, there were those that were created specifically for the film.

There was also one “Spring” from Stefan Rock, portrait of a movie collector in an orgy. Actually the table is unique work of the Greek artist which we find in “Inside”.

The first draft of the script fell into the hands of Stefanos Rocco. 2019. “Giorgos Karnavas (heretic producer) spoke to me about this film. We discussed the identity of the collector and what works such a person will have in the collection,” the Greek visual artist told K. “We started brainstorming, and at some point it turned out that this is a character with a very intense sex life, very narcissistic, he has the style of an omnipotent stallion. And so we thought to make his portrait surrounded by extreme orgies.” This is how the idea of ​​the work was born, which we see already from the very beginning of the film, since the goal from the very first minutes was to understand some things about the owner of the house that became Nimo’s prison.

The visual artist entered a period of creativity in the first phase of the Covid lockdown, when he himself painted for two and a half months a great orgy in the isolation of his laboratory – but of the whole world. “Well, it wasn’t the easiest thing in the world,” he will say, laughing.

The original script, he says, also included photographs of the collector in an enclosed space inside his luxurious loft, in which we saw him engage in various sadomasochistic scenes. They may have been overlooked along the way, but not Stefanos Rocco’s Spring, which “survived” in the final cut of the film.

In fact, just before the artist sent the work into production for final approval, he asked to see it for his good friend we all know: Nick Cave. Who was supposed to make his “from below” addition to this sexy “palimpsest”: “I sent him a rough photo of the project from my mobile phone. He was delighted and told me that the project lacked a koala. Because he is Australian and we have our own jokes,” he recalls. A few days later, Stefanos Rokos sent him an updated version of the work with two more “participations” of two koalas, in the style of “Where’s Waldo?”.

The Greek artist had already delivered the painting he had commissioned when the curator Leonardo Bigazzi became part of the film – indeed, Rokkos was the only participant in the project who was not chosen by the Italian curator.

“Spring”, as Stefanos Rocco aptly called this artistic celebration of life, a small “paradox” in the visual world “From Within”, since, in addition to being a work created “before Bigatti”, it is also the only picture of the work that constitutes ghost hero portrait, while he is not in the living room with the rest of the work, but opposite his bed. The work is more personal in every sense for the film collector, but the picture is more autonomous than the rest that pass the screen.

The story “From Within” may take place in a luxury apartment in New York, but the filming took place in Eau de Toilette (and for those wondering, the New York background was added via continuous video projection) during the lockdown period, making the film’s setting look like an encapsulated double quarantine.

Stefanos Rokos was present twice. While everything seemed to be heading towards having “Spring” hanging on the set, there was… a behind-the-scenes plot twist. Belgian actor Dirk Rufthuft, who was supposed to play the owner-collector, left the shoot due to Covid. “So they told me that either they would send the work back to me so that I could replace his face with a new actor who had not yet been found, or I would go to Cologne on the spot and change the portrait there,” explains the artist, who was finally found, boarded the first plane in the midst of Covid to end up in a German city to finally paint his face Jean Berwetz, completely different physiognomy than the original actor. Three days later, the final version of “Spring” was ready.

He ended up back in Cologne at the end of filming. wrap party a film where he had the opportunity to celebrate side by side with a childhood hero who is none other than the protagonist of “Inside” Willem Dafoe. “I always liked him physically, and from what I heard from him in interviews, and I was worried about what he would be like when I met him,” admits Stefanos Rokos, who finally met the guy that way as he expected: “He’s a great person, very intelligent, with a great sense of humor and unlucky shopping.”

And since the visual artist couldn’t resist grabbing his brushes and painting his favorite actor and now friend, he made sure place your hero Nimos in the orgy of his painting.

In a close-up, we see Nimos looking at a figure resembling him in the play. This is the moment when Defoe, with all his ability to interpret begins to pull the hero to madness.

Was he really in the picture? We leave it up to you.

“Inside” by Vassilis Katsoupis, starring Willem Dafoe, is being released in Greek cinemas by Tulip Entertainment.