Acclaimed director Lakis Papastathis dies
He was one of the main representatives of the New Greek Cinema, but also a multifaceted creative person, who left his mark in various types of art and with different means of expression (cinema, television, literature, criticism, etc.). A multidimensional intellectual personality, Papastathis is considered one of the most important directors of his generation and at the same time one of the founders of the cultural documentary on Greek television, mainly through the show "Behind the scenes" which he created together with the director Takis Hatzopoulos in 1976.
Until his last moments he maintained his dynamism and stubbornness, as well as his characteristic pride. He left as he lived: With absolute, non-negotiable dignity.
Lakis Papastathis was born in Volos in 1943, finished high school in Mytilini and studied at the Cinema Studies Center (1963). From very early in his career he directed short and feature films, which received critical acclaim for their aesthetic excellence and depth of content, as well as numerous awards. He began his career in cinema with short films in 1963. In 1972 the film "Letters from America" won the award for best short film at the Thessaloniki Festival of that year. Lakis Papastathis was a subtle but tireless and original intellectual creator. His path in the field of cinema was decisively influenced by "Eudokia", the famous and groundbreaking film by Alexis Damianos. In "Eudokia" Papastathis performed the duties of assistant director and key contributor to the completion of the production. In retrospect, and pioneering for Greek data, Lakis Papastathis published (Patakis 2006) an extensive monograph under the title "When Damianos was filming Eudokia", specifically dedicated to the background of a milestone film in the history of new Greek cinema.
Lakis Papastathis directed a total of four feature films: "The Time of the Greeks" (1981), "Theofilos" (1987), "The only life of a taxi" (2001), "Journey to Mytilene" (2010). His films won many film awards in Greece, including directorial and best film at the Thessaloniki Film Festival and the National Film Awards, while also participating in international festivals. For example, in 1980 "Theofilos" participated in the competition section of the Berlin Festival, while "The only life of a taxi", based on the short story of the same name by Georgios Vizyinos, was part of the official program at the Toronto Festival in 2001.
The element that made the director's cinematic look completely unique and distinct was the close relationship between cinema and literature. One could say that Lakis Papastathis was a director of words and texts or, by absolute symmetry, a literary artist of the image. In the end, Lakis Papastathis was the creator of a completely unique cinematic idiom, combining cinematic shots with the texts and authors he loved. At the same time, perhaps the most important chapter of his artistic life was the cultural show "Backstage" which he created together with the director Takis Hatzopoulos and which began to be shown on ERT in 1976. Papastathis himself directed dozens of episodes of "Backstage", which immortalized great figures of the intellectual life of the country and are a major part of the historical archive of Greek television over time. Among many others, Lakis Papastathi's documentaries about the poet Manolis Anagnostakis, with whom he had a close friendship, stand out. By June 2013, when ERT closed and the show was discontinued, "Paraskenio" had exceeded nine hundred topics (eighteen minutes, half an hour or 52 minutes long). From time to time, about two hundred directors as well as important journalists, scholars and film technicians worked in the "Backstage". Lakis Papastathis also directed historical documentaries as part of the "Searching for the Lost Image" series, which relied exclusively on film documentaries. His swan song on the small screen was the directing of shows in the framework of ERT's "Postscript" series, until 2022. Once, in an interview he gave to Jason Triantafyllidis, Lakis Papastathis had confessed that "'Backstage' was a decisive event in my life. Every day we were thinking about the next show. I think, it affected me in two ways: first, in the delay in making cinema because it was in a way a replenishment, I had a daily occupation with creation. And, secondly, it covered my relationship with modern reality. 'Backstage' made my own cinema want a fog of the past, because I had had enough of the relationship with modern intellectual life. Maybe that's why I was drawn to the turn of the century, which is a time I love, that you can look at not as a historian, but poetically. During this period lived beasts of Greek spirituality" .
This approach of Lakis Papastathis to art was, of course, not accidental. Besides, he himself, in addition to being a director, was also a writer, with a wide and original writing work. "I started by making cinema influenced by literature and now I write literary texts that have been determined by the way cinema tells," he said in an interview with "Vima" in 2011. In addition to the book on "Eudokia", he wrote four collections of short stories : "The bat flew" (published by Nefeli, 2002), "The Quiet and other short stories" (published by Nefeli, 2005), "The summer will play Clytemnestra" (published by Polis, 2011) and "The teacher loved the silent cinema" (published by Polis, 2014).
A separate chapter of his life was also the close friendship and collaboration with Dionysis Savvopoulos. In December 1973, Lakis Papastathis collaborated for the first time with Savvopoulos, undertaking the film direction for the songwriter's musical spectacle entitled "Third of Shadows" at the "Kyttaro" boutique. Immediately after the dictatorship, Lakis Papastathis directed the show "I'm very happy Savvopoulos", the first appearance of Savvopoulos on Greek television. Their last collaboration took place in 1999 with the direction of the video clip of the song "First of Two Thousand" from the album "The Timekeeper". Finally, in the field of theater, Lakis Papastathis collaborated with the legendary group of the "Free Theater", directing short films which were included in the performances "A Gulf Life" (1974) and "The Last Tram" (1976).
Lakis Papastathis was married to the actress Yvonne Maltezou. Together they had a son. The award-winning director, producer and writer Lakis Papastathis passed away early on Wednesday at the age of 79, after a long battle with cancer. He was one of the main representatives of the New Greek Cinema, but also a multifaceted creative person, who left his mark in various types of art and with different means of expression (cinema, television, literature, criticism, etc.). A multidimensional intellectual personality, Papastathis is considered one of the most important directors of his generation and at the same time one of the founders of the cultural documentary on Greek television, mainly through the show "Behind the scenes" which he created together with the director Takis Hatzopoulos in 1976. Until his last moments he maintained his dynamism and stubbornness, as well as his characteristic pride. He left as he lived: With absolute, non-negotiable dignity. Lakis Papastathis was born in Volos in 1943, finished high school in Mytilini and studied at the Cinema Studies Center (1963). From very early in his career he directed short and feature films, which received critical acclaim for their aesthetic excellence and depth of content, as well as numerous awards. He began his career in cinema with short films in 1963. In 1972 the film "Letters from America" won the award for best short film at the Thessaloniki Festival of that year.
Lakis Papastathis was a subtle but tireless and original intellectual creator. His path in the field of cinema was decisively influenced by "Eudokia", the famous and groundbreaking film by Alexis Damianos. In "Eudokia" Papastathis performed the duties of assistant director and key contributor to the completion of the production. In retrospect, and pioneering for Greek data, Lakis Papastathis published (Patakis 2006) an extensive monograph under the title "When Damianos was filming Eudokia", specifically dedicated to the background of a milestone film in the history of new Greek cinema. Lakis Papastathis directed a total of four feature films: "The Time of the Greeks" (1981), "Theofilos" (1987), "The only life of a taxi" (2001), "Journey to Mytilene" (2010). His films won many film awards in Greece, including directorial and best film at the Thessaloniki Film Festival and the National Film Awards, while also participating in international festivals. For example, in 1980 "Theofilos" participated in the competition section of the Berlin Festival, while "The only life of a taxi", based on the short story of the same name by Georgios Vizyinos, was part of the official program at the Toronto Festival in 2001. The element that made the director's cinematic look completely unique and distinct was the close relationship between cinema and literature. One could say that Lakis Papastathis was a director of words and texts or, by absolute symmetry, a literary artist of the image. In the end, Lakis Papastathis was the creator of a completely unique cinematic idiom, combining cinematic shots with the texts and authors he loved. At the same time, perhaps the most important chapter of his artistic life was the cultural show "Backstage" which he created together with the director Takis Hatzopoulos and which began to be shown on ERT in 1976. Papastathis himself directed dozens of episodes of "Backstage", which immortalized great figures of the intellectual life of the country and are a major part of the historical archive of Greek television over time. Among many others, Lakis Papastathi's documentaries about the poet Manolis Anagnostakis, with whom he had a close friendship, stand out.
By June 2013, when ERT closed and the show was discontinued, "Paraskenio" had exceeded nine hundred topics (eighteen minutes, half an hour or 52 minutes long). From time to time, about two hundred directors as well as important journalists, scholars and film technicians worked in the "Backstage". Lakis Papastathis also directed historical documentaries as part of the "Searching for the Lost Image" series, which relied exclusively on film documentaries. His swan song on the small screen was the directing of shows in the framework of ERT's "Postscript" series, until 2022. Once, in an interview he gave to Jason Triantafyllidis, Lakis Papastathis had confessed that "'Backstage' was a decisive event in my life. Every day we were thinking about the next show. I think, it affected me in two ways: first, in the delay in making cinema because it was in a way a replenishment, I had a daily occupation with creation. And, secondly, it covered my relationship with modern reality. 'Backstage' made my own cinema want a fog of the past, because I had had enough of the relationship with modern intellectual life. Maybe that's why I was drawn to the turn of the century, which is a time I love, that you can look at not as a historian, but poetically. During this period lived beasts of Greek spirituality" This approach of Lakis Papastathis to art was, of course, not accidental. Besides, he himself, in addition to being a director, was also a writer, with a wide and original writing work. "I started by making cinema influenced by literature and now I write literary texts that have been determined by the way cinema tells," he said in an interview with "Vima" in 2011. In addition to the book on "Eudokia", he wrote four collections of short stories : "The bat flew" (published by Nefeli, 2002), "The Quiet and other short stories" (published by Nefeli, 2005), "The summer will play Clytemnestra" (published by Polis, 2011) and "The teacher loved the silent cinema" (published by Polis, 2014). A separate chapter of his life was also the close friendship and collaboration with Dionysis Savvopoulos. In December 1973, Lakis Papastathis collaborated for the first time with Savvopoulos, undertaking the film direction for the songwriter's musical spectacle entitled "Third of Shadows" at the "Kyttaro" boutique. Immediately after the dictatorship, Lakis Papastathis directed the show "I'm very happy Savvopoulos", the first appearance of Savvopoulos on Greek television. Their last collaboration took place in 1999 with the direction of the video clip of the song "First of Two Thousand" from the album "The Timekeeper". Finally, in the field of theater, Lakis Papastathis collaborated with the legendary group of the "Free Theater", directing short films which were included in the performances "A Gulf Life" (1974) and "The Last Tram" (1976).
Lakis Papastathis was married to the actress Yvonne Maltezou. Together they had a son.
