Athina Rachel Tsangari

"For me, cinema is a collective trance”. Born in 1966, Athina Rachel Tsangari has established herself as one of the leading figures of the New Wave of Greek cinema. Her first steps in the world of cinema were as an actress, in Richard Linklater's Slacker (1990), then she turned her attention to the world behind the cameras, developing an absurdist sense of humor and incisive observation, characteristics that are very present in her works such as The Slow Business of Going (2000) and Chevalier (2015). Tsangari has redefined the boundaries of contemporary cinema through her meticulous cinematography and her ability to transform minimalist narratives into profound human allegories. Her films offer an insightful look at human relationships, exploring themes of alienation, identity, and power dynamics through experimentation with framing and lights, as in Attenberg (2010), one of her most celebrated works. Tsangari uses cinema as a social laboratory where she examines human behavior in absurd yet recognizable contexts, achieving both an intellectual and emotional connection with the viewer. In addition to her work as a director, she was the founder of the Cinematexas International Short Film Festival and is a professor at Harvard. Today, her work remains a legacy of Greek cinematic innovation, and her cinema, between the personal and the universal, resonates as a space for reflection and international artistic innovation.