About

Known credits:
29
Birthday:
1927-01-01
Place of birth:
Athens, Greece
Website:
N/A

Kostas Sfikas

Overview

Kostas Sfikas (Athens, 1927 - Athens 25 May 2009) was a Greek film director, screenwriter and actor. For his film The Model he won half the award for best feature film at the 15th Greek Film Festival. In 1961 he started as a documentary filmmaker with his short films Inauguration (1962), which is recorded as a directed documentary, Waiting (1963) and Theraic Morning (1968), co-directed by Stavros Tornes, which was later purchased by the MOMA in New York. During the years of the dictatorship he seems to have developed a completely different cinematic approach - problematic, completely outside of anything that had been seen in domestic cinema up to that point. Dedicated to experimental cinema, Kostas Sfikas directed documentaries and fiction films, constituting a consistent alternative voice in the field of Greek cinema, the "last ideal of our solitary cinema".

Kostas Sfikas is a director who tested, one might say to the extreme, the tolerances and endurance of cinematic creativity, he reflected and labored for another, completely radical and deviating from the usual narrative cinema, approach to cinematic culture. In other times and under other circumstances he would have been an outcast. In those times and in those circumstances, it was treated as an admittedly extreme but respected and existing trend, which enriched the reflections on what it is, how it is constructed, how it is read, how cinematographic creation is accepted. The Model is a film, outside the Greek data and established norms, which surprises from the beginning. It is silent, without sound and music – basically it has no actors, although there are human figures, dozens of figures, moving in the frame –, consisting of a single shot! The film is based on an idea related to Eisenstein's idea of ​​filming economic relations as described in Karl Marx's Capital. After this pioneering start, Sfikas would continue with the film Metropolises (1975), Allegory (1986), The Prophetic Bird of Sorrows by Paul Klee (1995), Prometheus of Opposite Directions (1998), The Woman of... and the Collector (2002), Metamorphosis (2007).

Sfikas' translation work is significant. He translated the works of Sergei Eisenstein: Cinema and Painting, Beyond the Stars, and The Form of Film, André Bazin: What is Cinema (Ontology and Language, An Aesthetic of Realism and Neorealism), Noel Birch: The Act of Cinema. The highlight of his translation work is his work on Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. He has also translated Honoré de Balzac's works The Splendor and the Misery of Companies and Lost Dreams.

Kostas Sfikas' visits to the Cinetic offices for 30 years have created a tradition of high-level discussions with Lakis Papastathis and Takis Hatzopoulos, creators of the show, and led to the creation of ten of his shows for Paraskenio: The Violinist Tatsis Apostolidis, Notation in the Work of Yannis Christos, The Gospel According to Mark, The Circus, Voices and Haunts of Rebetiko, Expressionism in Cinema, Molière's Misanthrope, Montage in Eisenstein, An Allegory of Power, The Enigmatic Monsieur Jules Verne.

Known for

Acting

2001 See No Evil Actor 58
Average
1998 Prometheus Retrogressing Actor N/A
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1996 Touch Me Not Actor 59
Average
1996 The Triumph of Time Actor Narrator N/A
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1996 A Drop in the Ocean Actor 59
Average
1988 The Woman Who Dreamed Actor Man in Dream 58
Average
1980 Melodrama? Actor 58
Average
1978 The Idlers of the Fertile Valley Actor 58
Average
1974 Kierion Actor 58
Average
1974 The Colors of Iris Actor Man with Umbrella 58
Average
1973 John the Violent Actor 58
Average
1972 Days of '36 Actor Prosecutor's Assistant 59
Average
Μετά σαράντα μέρες Actor N/A
N/A

Directing

2006 Metamorphosis Directing Director N/A
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1998 Prometheus Retrogressing Directing Director N/A
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1986 Allegory Directing Director 59
Average
1975 Metropoles Directing Director N/A
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1974 Model Directing Director N/A
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1968 Thirean Matins Directing Director 58
Average
I gynaika tis... kai o syllektis - Alligoria III Directing Director N/A
N/A
To profitiko pouli ton thlipseon tou Paul Klee Directing Director N/A
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Writing

2006 Metamorphosis Writing Writer N/A
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1998 Prometheus Retrogressing Writing Writer N/A
N/A
1986 Allegory Writing Writer 59
Average
1975 Metropoles Writing Screenplay N/A
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1974 Kierion Writing Writer 58
Average
1974 Model Writing Writer N/A
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1963 Young Aphrodites Writing Writer 58
Average

Art

1974 Model Art Set Designer N/A
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