Eva Stefani

While unearthing an icon of the Holy Madonna in her small apartment, an elderly Greek woman sighs that she is in the inevitable winter of her life. She studies a textbook of the French language, which she used to have a thorough command of, but unfortunately let slide. She hardly reads anymore, either, which she thinks rather stupid of herself. Her window on the world is her television, which she briskly comments on. The bleach-blond anchor woman is very sharp, but her favourite is newsreader Niko. She addresses him as if he were her roommate and cannot keep her hands off the screen. He excites her even more than the fighter jets, volcanic eruptions, protesters, politicians, friendly Turks and black athletes that are the items of Niko's newscast. The Box is a reflection in miniature format about old age and one-way communication in our media-dominated society.

Eva Stefani follows the rehearsals at Onassis Stegi and the international tour of Dimitris Papaioannou’s legendary stage work, Transverse Orientation. Her film is also a portrait of the artist in his effort to give shape and breathe life into his work.

One short film by Eva Stefani

Three friends from 60s Paris attempt a road trip to modern-day Greece, looping in and out of fantasy and questioning absolutely everything. A situation comedy and a coming-of-age fairy tale or, according to the director himself, "a film that can be heard". Starring Nikos Kouris, Doukissa Nomikou, Dimitris Katalifos and Pavlos Haikalis. Lifetime Achievement Award to Nikos Panagiotopoulos

Experimental film that combines adult movies from the early 70's, accompanied with the sound of the national anthem of Greece.

A man and a woman make love while listening to the national reveille from the radio.

Using the archives of different sources, the film tries an alternative reading of Makronisos, an island used as a concentration camp for supporters of the left after the Greek civil war.

Through the microcosm of an old coffee shop in Metaxourgeio, in the late 1980s, we witness a neighborhood that is changing radically. The camera records the slow rhythms that govern life in the coffee shop, the rituals of the patrons, the petty conflicts between regulars and non-regulars that can lead from fistfights to hugs, the confessions after drinking, the great friendships, in other words, everything we don't see and don't do in today's "coffee shops".

A film recovered showing two women kissing, accompanied by a Greek folk song.

A short film by Eva Stefani.

Only Men documents the everyday life of several middle-aged men; multiple narratives composed of “infinitesimally small” stories move between realism and paradox, outlining a man’s world in a very different, anti-heroic way, removed from the stereotypical depiction of masculinity. It is of no importance who these men are. They could be a poet, the owner of a taverna in Metaxourgeio, a retired tailor, or a builder meeting an immigrant in a coffee shop.

In the film Acropolis (2001/2004), she puts forth a subversive, feminist view of the famous monument. She follows a procedure that is the reverse of observation, putting together existing Super 8 footage with porn and archival material, and by identifying the Parthenon with the female body, she negotiates anew our received notions about Greekness and femininity.

The film follows a summer season in the lives of a group of retired Greek men and women who are regular visitors at various Greek spa towns. Life around Greek spa towns moves slowly with rhythms that are reminiscent of times past. Within this listless atmosphere, people feel free to do and say things they would never be allowed in their respective normal social circles. A sense of freedom and lightness is in the air. Instead of being amongst elderly people, one often gets the feeling of being around a group of teenagers in a summer camp. This joyful atmosphere often alternates with reflections on the past or on death.

A portrait of the writer and translator, lover of the small form, E. C. Gonatas, filmed over the course of a year at his home in Kato Kifissia. The camera silently follows Gonatas everywhere: on his tours of the garden, in old warehouses, immersed in dictionaries, on the floor as he pets a cat. Without ever referring to his writing capacity, the documentary captures many of the elements of his work: his love of nature, the paradox, the futility but also the hilarity of things.

Presented at Documenta 14 in Athens.

Dimitra is a sex worker and president of her union for many years. She loves her work and had been the owner of one of the oldest brothels of Athens, known as ‘Elli’s brothel’. The film is a portrait of Dimitra, with the camera following her in her everyday life, before and after the brothel closed down in 2014. As we get to know her we are faced with questions of desire, exploitation, the right to otherness and political correctness.

A documentary about a Greek woman who sells pretzels on 34th street in New York city. His daily life is interrupted by fragments of his life in the country.

A film by Eva Stefani

A film by Eva Stefani

The film observes the friendship of two inmates of the prison Feltham, a juvenile prison in the suburbs of London. Paul and John spend their days recording songs that they then send to girls they don't know, creating a wire imagination with the outside world. The documentary follows the approach of the "cinema of observation", that is to say, the observation of long duration, narration loose, and lack of leadership during the shooting.