Stefanos Sitaras

Stefanos Sitaras is a Greek film director, screenwriter, and producer. Films he has directed include Light Blue and Orange (2004), The Magic World of Harrison Patrakis (2014), and The Rocket (2019). His father was born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and his mother is of Italian ancestry. His career began at age 13, when he attended the New York Film Academy program in Paris and directed Through the Eyes of a Child (2003). At age 14, he wrote and directed the award-winning Light Blue and Orange (2004), a historical epic about the Asia Minor wars of 1914. Shot and presented in 35mm, the film opened the 2005 Athens International Film Festival, stirring audiences and critics into an experience which, according to Thodoris Koutsogiannopoulos, "conveys memories written in our DNA, and translates war into concrete terms of time and space, scarce even among accomplished filmmakers with years of experience." At the age of 15 he was diagnosed with an arachnoid cyst in the left frontal lobe of his brain, a rare condition that usually proves fatal in infancy. He opted against the high risk of surgery, and chose to monitor it while continuing to work. The young director's career continued with the Trilogy of Zitiano, three short films about the adventures of a street beggar. Esperando (2005), Hitherto (2006), and Morbido (2007) competed in a prodigious amount of international film festivals, including the Cannes Film Festival, Sundance, Palm Springs, Berlinale, Mannheim-Heidelberg, LA Shorts Fest and the Thessaloniki Film Festival. During that time, he also directed the comedic short Gregory and Stamatis (2006), the documentary The Verification (2006), and more. In 2007 he moved to Boston Massachusetts, to study film at Emerson College, with a scholarship from the Onassis Foundation. Academically as well as independently, he made over ten short films, and participated in many independent productions in America and Europe. In 2008 he wrote his first book, a collection of psychoanalytic essays titled Plato's Death, published by the Iwasaki Library of Emerson College. In 2009, he produced and directed the television film Colors of the West (2009), a historical drama starring Giannis Zouganelis, who called Stefanos Sitaras "the most important artist of his generation." The following year he made his award-winning short films Photographia (2008), Niqab (2010), Noise (2010), and Suction (2010), culminating in the experimental The Fritzl Effect (2011), which was honored in over twenty international film festivals, mainly for its directing and editing. After graduating in 2011, he worked in Los Angeles and New York, primarily as a writer, cinematographer, and editor. In 2012, he gave his popular speech at NYU titled "I Dare You to Live Forever," during the Greek America Foundation's National Innovation Conference at New York University. Since then, he occasionally works as a motivational speaker at events, conferences, and international platforms such TEDx. At the same time, in both Europe and America, he started directing commercials, music videos, corporate videos, news reports, and TV documentaries. In 2012, at the age of 22, he returned to Athens, working mainly in theatre and advertising. He wrote and directed The Magic World of Harrison Patrakis (2014), co-produced by Paper Street Films, the Greek America Foundation, and Principal Media of Libra Group. For this three-year project he was widely recognized in the Greek arena, principally for his action and contribution to the Greek economic crisis: he spoke at the International Marketing Summit in Istanbul and was featured by Stavros Theodorakis in Protagonistes (2001). He also collaborated with legendary stage director Dimitris Papaioannou for three consecutive seasons, in the performance-art pieces Primal Matter and Still Life (2012 - 2014). He directed commercials for Amstel beer, Herbalife Nutrition, the Make a Wish Foundation, and more. Between 2015 and 2019, Stefanos Sitaras directed his first feature film, the hangout comedy The Rocket (2019). Shot entirely with non-actors over four years in Greece and Italy, The Rocket (2019) chronicles the friendship of two young men as they grow apart over the years. He served as his own cinematographer, screenwriter, producer, editor, financier, costume designer, and art director. The film premiered worldwide at the 60th Thessaloniki International Film Festival, to an enthusiastic reception from critics and audiences alike. As renowned critic Nektarios Sakkas put it, "The Rocket (2019) is the definition of guerrilla filmmaking, a once-in-a-generation experiment that can only be made possible by brazen madness, persistence, twentysomething audacity, and complete ignorance of danger." When asked, during a Q&A at the Thessaloniki Film Festival, what the hardest part about making The Rocket (2019) was, he replied: "I had the opportunity to blame circumstance, the economy, or fate, for my own inertia - but I didn't. I started my own company, bought my own Alexa, rounded up my best friends, and soldiered on for four years. We failed all the time, but we finished it. This is what I want to pass on to younger filmmakers: don't wait for the investor, the producer, the big break, the inner signs, the outer signs. Don't plan life in big brushstrokes, instead, play the hand you're dealt. Look around you and assess what you have: what friends you got, what locations you have access to. Make a movie out of those. You'll get so caught up doing it, that you'll forget there was ever any other way. It may be flawed, unpolished, or even amateur, but it will exist - and you won't be stuck forever in the realm of 'potential.' This is how I made The Rocket (2019), and for what it's worth, that is what my life experience can attest to. A good film isn't something you make, it's something you find." Stefanos Sitaras lives and works in Athens, Greece. He started his own production company Random Party, a media development and production house, aimed at discovering new talent and developing projects by young filmmakers in Greece and Europe.