Directed by Nico Papatakis
7 Episodes
Startling, subversive, and explosively controversial, the films of Ethiopian-born Greek iconoclast Nico Papatakis have long been frustratingly hard to see, but they constitute one of the most radical and neglected bodies of work in all of European cinema. A man of the world who rubbed shoulders with Jean Genet and John Cassavetes (he produced the former’s UN CHANT D’AMOUR and the latter’s SHADOWS), Papatakis began his directing career with the incendiary call to class warfare LES ABYSSES, which nearly provoked a riot when it premiered at Cannes in 1963. The scandal was merely a warm-up for a career that courted controversy at every turn and which includes the deliriously surreal romantic tragedy THE SHEPHERDS OF CALAMITY and the shocking Algerian War parable GLORIA MUNDI, a film so inflammatory it could not be shown in Paris for three decades. With their expressionistically heightened style and transgressive themes, Papatakis’s films have served as a major inspiration for the so-called “Weird Wave” of contemporary Greek filmmakers like Yorgos Lanthimos and Athina Rachel Tsangari, who carry on the cinematic rebellion that he launched.
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Richard Linklater and Athina Rachel Tsangari on Nico Papatakis
Episode 1
In this conversation, filmed in the summer of 2021 in Greece, filmmakers and friends Richard Linklater and Athina Rachel Tsangari talk about the lasting impressions the films of Nico Papatakis have left on them.
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01:12Episode 2Directed by Nico Papatakis Teaser
Episode 2
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1:32:49Episode 3Les abysses
Episode 3
Directed by Nico Papatakis • 1963 • France
Starring Francine Bergé, Colette Bergé, Pascale de BoyssonInspired by the notorious case of Christine and Léa Papin—French sisters working as maids who murdered their employer’s wife and daughter in 1933—Nico Papatakis’s debut feature was a succès de s...
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2:01:48Episode 4The Shepherds of Calamity
Episode 4
Directed by Nico Papatakis • 1967 • Greece
Starring Olga Karlatos, George Dialegmenos, Lambros TsagasNico Papatakis’s caustic political allegory—made in the wake of the 1967 Greek coup d’état that led to the establishment of a right-wing military junta—takes the form of a deliriously unhinged r...
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1:56:51Episode 5Gloria Mundi
Episode 5
Directed by Nico Papatakis • 1976 • France
Starring Olga Karlatos, Roland Bertin, Philippe AdrienOne of the most shocking and transgressive films of the 1970s, this incendiary political parable centers on Galai (the fearless Olga Karlatos), an actress starring as an Arab terrorist in a film abo...
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1:52:44Episode 6The Photograph
Episode 6
Directed by Nico Papatakis • 1986 • France, Greece
Starring Hristos Tsagas, Aris Retsos, Zozo ZarpaNico Papatakis brilliantly dissects the soul of modern Greece in this darkly comic, cuttingly perceptive exile’s tale. Fleeing political turmoil in Greece, Ilias (Aris Retsos) travels to Paris and...
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1:59:38Episode 7Walking a Tightrope
Episode 7
Directed by Nico Papatakis • 1991 • France
Starring Michel Piccoli, Lilah Dadi, Polly WalkerBased on an incident in the life of director Nico Papatakis’s former friend and collaborator Jean Genet, WALKING A TIGHTROPE casts Michel Piccoli as Marcel Spadice, a thinly veiled version of the celebra...
