Artist Spotlight: Athina Tsangari

Athina Rachel Tsangari is a 2014-2015 visiting faculty member in Harvard’s Visual and Environmental Studies Department. A world-renowned producer and director from Greece, Tsangari is known for short films such as “Fit” (1994), “The Capsule” (2012), and “Twenty Frames Per Century” (2013), as well as the feature films “The Slow Business of Going” (2001) and “Attenberg” (2010). Her collaboration with Yorgos Lanthimos on “Dogtooth” (2009) won Prix Un Certain Regard at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. Her films deal with universal questions of identity, impermanence, and self-perception in a manner that is often comical but always realist.

The Harvard Crimson: Your first short film, “Fit,” follows protagonist Lizzie through her day and narrates her actions in the style of an animal documentary. “Attenberg” also touches upon this: we see Marina and Spyros watching an Attenborough documentary and then spending a long time carousing on the bed acting like gorillas. There’s an interesting quality of movement and observation there. What was the inspiration behind that?

Athina Tsangari: I come from a background which is theater and the study of Greek tragedy and performance studies, [so] the way the body occupies spaces and frames—especially film frames—really fascinates me, [and] it has fascinated me since I was very little. I am more interested in approaching my characters as biological entities rather than psychological [ones]…. [Filmmakers] are given the opportunity to really fathom the human face and the human body and human behavior because everything is so big on the screen, you know. Cinema was created as this marvel apparatus [for] recording and observing life. I think the combination of substantiated observation, the use of humor, and working with biology rather than psychology are my tools. My mise-en-scene.

I love the idea of approaching humans from different sides and looking at behaviors and stories from the side rather than from head on. Sort of trying to explain and chew everything—humans are much more open and hungry and curious than we give them credit for.

THC: Your films predominantly feature women and women's bodies—for example, the animalism of “The Capsule,” or Petra’s dominant character in “The Slow Business of Going.” Why?

AT: I think the easy answer is because I’m a woman, and I understand and admire my gender.

THC: I feel that in so many cases the women are portrayed as very fragile and secondary characters. In “The Slow Business of Going,” Petra is not—she’s the protagonist. And we see her with so many different men—the man who’s screaming at her to wake up, the man who’s running out of the elevator—[but] she is always in control.

AT: The way we set it up was to have each episode, each city, fit a certain genre—for example, film noir, slapstick comedy, romantic comedy—and twist it. It was nice to approach a genre where [the scene] starts with a convention of the genre. So, for instance, the hit man: he’s on a job in a hotel and takes a girl upstairs to sleep with her. And then she completely puts his job in disarray. So her being this kind of objectified muse—she completely throws the table around. And it becomes a very sort of ridiculous situation.

THC: How have you seen your style or aesthetic develop over the years?

AT: I never adhere to a specific aesthetic. In the end, I think you always end up making the same movie, because if there is something that you think that you’re here in this world to express, and if you don’t express it, you’re gonna implode. We all have our obsessions and our fetishes. And sometimes [if you have] a clear vision, you can open a little door. It’s not always crystal clear, but the process of [making films] can bring you to maturity and clarity.

THC: In the past you've discussed the sense of expectation that people have of a female director and her films. What has your journey as a female director been like?

AT: I always dread answering this question because it’s a can of worms and a pit of snakes. So depending as what you’re going to say, you’re gonna be either categorized as a feminist or a chick-flick director, or a renegade, un-female director who wants to make male movies. You can’t win. It hasn’t really preoccupied me very much. I’m doing my thing and I think my films are both for women and men. They have both men and women. As a woman of course I think I have this privilege and advantage of understanding my own. But I’m also working very actively as a producer—I teach, I’m a programmer. I like to do all of this in very different ways. And apart from the fact that I come from a country that when I was growing up it was very difficult for a girl growing up to become a film director. I started very late and I studied philosophy, literature, drama. It wasn’t until I was 19 or 20 that I thought, “Wow, I can be a [film director].”

THC: What do you hope people will take from your films?

AT: (laughs) That’s for you to say. I don’t hope for anything. I just make them without any expectations. Just fear and trepidation. I have trepidation, yes, but not any expectations. I don’t want to know, you know? It’s better to do it for yourself. But usually you’ll have two or three people as your ideal or necessary audience in your head. I always have a few people that I secretly dedicate each film to…. These are people I know, but also people I don’t know—people who are like my heroes.