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Constantine Giannaris

Constantine Giannaris

Directing

Biography

Konstantinos Giannaris (Sydney, 1959) is a Greek film director. Born in Sydney. He studied economics, history and philosophy at Keele and Birmingham Universities in Britain. His film career began in England, where he completed short, low-budget independent films. He was involved in the 1982 experimental English documentary The Revenge of the Teenage Perverts in which gay teenagers ask English heterosexuals about their views on homosexuality. His first Greek film, A Place in the Sun in 1995, won the Best Greek Film Award at the Drama Short Film Festival. It was followed in the same year by the film Close to Paradise and in 1998 by the film From the Edge of the City, which won the second prize for Best Film of the Ministry of Culture. In 2001 he filmed Dekapentaugustos and in 2004 Homer. His films have been screened at many international film festivals and forums. His first feature film Near Paradise was financed and shot in London. Today he works and lives in Athens. He has openly declared that he is homosexual and an atheist.

Known For

3 Steps to Heaven
3.8

A bereaved woman adopts multiple disguises to track down the last three people to see her boyfriend before he died.

3 Steps to Heaven

1995
Spring Awakening
4.6

Contemporary Athens: A gang of teenage thieves and romantic anarchists test the limits of their youthful rebellion and play out their own tragic spring awakening against the backdrop of a dying city.

Spring Awakening

2016
Visions of Europe
5.2

Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.

Visions of Europe

2004
One Day in August
5.6

Middle August in Athens. Three families, living in a three storey building, leave for their summer vacations. Everyone is wishing for a miracle to happen this summer. In the meantime, a drifter breaks into their apartments and rummages their personal belongings, thus unfolding hidden secrets.

One Day in August

2002
From the Edge of the City
5.8

Minority-group Greeks from an outer suburb of Athens struggle with their life on society's fringe and exploitation of one another.

From the Edge of the City

1998
Hostage
5.6

Inspired by the real-life story of a bus hijacking in Northern Greece, HOSTAGE explores the sensitive issue of Greek-Albanian relations through a young Albanian who takes over an intercity bus. Upon hijacking the bus, he takes the seven passengers hostage and demands a ransom of half and million euro, and safe passage to his homeland of Albania. Surrounded by police, the bus trundles towards the Albanian border and the tension mounts until the final harrowing conclusion.

Hostage

2005
North of Vortex
4.1

A gay poet heads west from New York City in his convertible. He picks up a muscular sailor who's bisexual; then Jackie, a waitress at a diner, joins them. Jackie is attracted to the poet who rebuffs her romantic gestures; rejection fuels her continued interest in him. The sailor and the poet are bonded by sex, but the sailor's frank advances to Jackie make him uninteresting to her. The sailor can get violent, the poet is passive, Jackie is glamorous and detached. The landscape changes, they stop in cities and in the desert. They reach a lake. Who will be left out of a final pairing?

North of Vortex

1991
Jimmy Somerville: The Video Collection 1984/1990 (Featuring Bronski Beat and The Communards)
8.0

Collection of music videos by Jimmy Somerville, both as solo artist as well as with the bands Bronski Beat and The Communards.

Jimmy Somerville: The Video Collection 1984/1990 (Featuring Bronski Beat and The Communards)

1990
Man at Sea
2.0

Alex a captain with sad past saves thirty teens Afghan refugees. With tension constantly increasing, Alex tries to tackle the company's and crew pressures.

Man at Sea

2011
Caught Looking
4.3

Caught Looking sees a lonely gay man attempt to explore his sexual fantasies with the help of an interactive computer game, guiding his virtual reality persona through a series of potential encounters (naval rough trade, a moustachioed 'clone', a 50s muscle man) while offering wry commentary on the shifting landscape of queer cruising. But is it love he’s really looking for?

Caught Looking

1991
Constantine Giannaris: The Short Films
5.0

Three short films from Greece's greatest filmaker with Introduction to each by the filmaker: Caught Looking, Noth of Votrex, A place in the Sun.

Constantine Giannaris: The Short Films

1994
Framed Youth: The Revenge of the Teenage Perverts
4.0

Gay and lesbian teenagers interview straight people on the streets of London about their views on homosexuality.

Framed Youth: The Revenge of the Teenage Perverts

1983
No image
N/A

A collection of 19 unpublished short videos, which the director presented for the first time at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival in 2011. Divided into 'Travels I (1978-1991)' and 'Travels II (1991-2007)'.

Travelogue

2011
A Place in the Sun
4.2

Ilias, a young man of Athens, meets Panagiotis, a new-comer from Albania and falls in love with him. He pays dearly for the relationship.

A Place in the Sun

1994
The Battle of Tuntenhaus
N/A

The Tuntenhaus or "House of Queers" was originally a squat on Mainzer Str. in East Berlin. This gritty verité documentary follows the fortunes of the Tuntenhaus through the days of anarchy and riots that followed German reunification to the sudden invasion by 3000 West German police, armed with tanks and tear gas in a massive operation to evict them.

The Battle of Tuntenhaus

1991
Without
N/A

A contemporary married couple and their eight-year-old son are exposed to our observation. The husband, around 35, works as a tax specialist for an import-export firm. His 30-year-old wife looks after their child and their home. The man's impending promotion at work triggers their dreams of social advancement and financial improvement. As their plain everyday life unfolds the characters are denuded to reveal their different needs and desires which render their functioning and communication increasingly hard. The man's inability to meet the escalating demands of his social circle and those of his wife brings tension into their relationship and leads to the culmination of the drama. The unexpected as well as extreme solution given by the heroine leads both the hero and the viewer to redefine reality on the basis of how things look and how they really are.

Without

2008
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N/A

Put on your dancing shoes! A documentary about the roots, the tradition, and the impact of disco music; about its “gay gene” and the fever it brought onto the dance floor; and about the way it got its revenge, by inspiring the music of the present and winning the acclaim it deserved.

Disco's Revenge

1989
Trojans
4.3

A brief look at the life of the Greek poet Constantine Cavafy.

Trojans

1990
Jean Genet Is Dead
2.7

Young men find themselves scattered and defencelessly exposed to a merciless sun. Their gaze moves off searchingly into the distance. Deserted places appear to offer vague promises of refuge. On a prison wall, an explosive image of desire emerges, full of hope for freedom.

Jean Genet Is Dead

1989
No image
N/A

Movie about Pasolini by fellow gay auteur Constantine Giannaris.

A Desperate Vitality: The Films by Pier Paolo Pasolini

1992