30/06/2017 - The Greek director has finished shooting his first feature film, which is also the first project from the First Films First training programme to enter post-production

Marisha Triantafyllidou in Her Job (© Panagiotis Zeppos)

Nikos Labôt (aka Charalampopoulos) has been actively involved in cinema for years: he has directed three short films (his last one, The Dog, was awarded at numerous international film festivals), his feature-length creative documentary The Immortals at the Southern Point of Europe premiered in 2013 at the 15^th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, and he has worked in both Greece and France. He has just wrapped the shoot for his debut feature-length fiction film, Her Job [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Nikos Labôt
film profile], which took part in the first edition of the First Films First (FFF) training programme and the When East Meets West Co-production Forum in 2016. It is worth noting that this is the first FFF project that has finished pre-production.

The screenplay, written by the director and Katerina Klitsioti, follows 37-year-old Panagiota (Marisha Triantafyllidou), who lives with her husband Kostas (Dimitris Imellos) and their two children in a petit bourgeois Athenian neighbourhood. Kostas has been unemployed since the financial recession hit the family. The pressure created by this event extends to the couple’s relationship and affects their children’s behaviour, too. Confronting the problems in her previously comfortably off household, Panagiota, whose only task was to take care of everyone, now needs to get a job for the first time in her life. There, the heroine will face ruthless exploitation and will be forced to find a new identity.

Her Job was shot over 30 days in several popular neighbourhoods in Athens, such as Nikaia, Egaleo and Drapetsona, which all reflect the social class of the heroine. The producer of the film, Maria Drandaki, states, “The shoot was demanding both for the lead actress and for the crew, but it went well, despite the situation at the Greek Film Centre, which did not allow us to get any cash flow during filming. It is thanks to the wonderful team of actors, crew and co-producers that we finalised the film, and I'm really thankful to all of them.” Labôt is now getting ready to move to France, where the editing and post-production of the film will take place.

The producer also refers to their experience as participants of FFF: “The programme offers a warm and safe environment to develop a first feature film within a very demanding market. For Nikos and me, it was a wonderful chance to focus on different aspects of the film, from the script development to shooting test scenes, to presenting the project at a co-production market. The project gained a lot of attention thanks to its participation in the different workshops of FFF held at various regional events and festivals, and at the same time gave us a valuable insight into the industry of the region.”

Her Job is a Greek-French-Serbian co-production by Maria Drandaki (Homemade Films), Julie Paratian (Sister Productions) and Milan Stojanović (Sense Production). The film is supported by the Greek Film Centre, ERT SA, the CNC, the Film Center Serbia and Cineventure. It was developed with the support of the SEE Cinema Network, and the world sales have been secured by French company Jour2Fête.