Stefanos Sitaras (b. 1989)
Alias:
Στέφανος Σιταράς
Birthplace:
Αθήνα, Ελλάδα
Born:
December 13, 1989
Stefanos Sitaras is a Greek film director, screenwriter, and producer. Films he has directed include Galazio kai portokali (2004), H. (2014), and O pyravlos (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 Galazio kai portokali (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." 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. 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, at the age of 22, he returned to Athens, working mainly in theatre and advertising. He wrote and directed H. (2014), co-produced by Paper Street Films, the Greek America Foundation, and Principal Media of Libra Group. 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 O pyravlos (2019). Shot entirely with non-actors over four years in Greece and Italy, O pyravlos (2019) chronicles the friendship of two young men as they grow apart over the years. 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.