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FILMFEST MÜNCHEN 2021

Nikias Chryssos • Director of A Pure Place

“I wanted to create a visual and musical experience that would drag the viewer into a different world”

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- The Greek-German director’s second feature, centring on a fictional sect, had its world premiere at this year's Filmfest München

Nikias Chryssos  • Director of A Pure Place
(© Viktor Richardsson/LOLA)

At Filmfest München, the second-biggest film festival in Germany, after the Berlinale, Greek-German director Nikias Chryssos presented his dystopian tragicomedy A Pure Place [+see also:
film review
interview: Nikias Chryssos
film profile
]
, which centres on a fictional sect. In order to be able to reach paradise, its members have to achieve the highest level of purity, both inside and out. We talked to the director about his inspiration for the story, the development of his visual concept and the biggest production challenges he faced.

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Cineuropa: Where did the inspiration for the film come from?
Nikias Chryssos:
I have been fascinated by religion ever since I was a teenager. Religion deals with a lot of important questions, and it is interesting to look deeper into it. People take different positions towards religion and develop some extreme forms of it. I began to conduct research on sects, watched documentaries and visited as many of them as I could. With all of this information, I searched for an approach that could be interesting for the film. In my opinion, sects have a fairy tale-like character. Each group develops its own world, with specific customs and rites. It is a microcosm of its own. I knew I didn't want to use a real sect or a real case as the basis, but rather create our own cult. Purity – for example, in the form of ritual washing – is a concept that often applies for most religions and religious groups, and therefore it inspired me.

How did you develop the visual concept of the film?
I wanted to evoke a fairy tale-like character and to create this specific microcosm of the sect. I collected a lot of material – pictures, paintings and music – and sorted it to find an aesthetic for the film. Moreover, I wanted to give each level and each world within the story a different character. They had to overlap and collide. The setting, costumes, camera and direction all contributed to the visual concept.

Why did you choose Sam Louwyck for the role of the leader, Fust?
I saw Sam in Ex-Drummer [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
and was very impressed. There, he has a completely different role; he is not exactly a proponent of purity. Then I saw him in The Wonders [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Alice Rohrwacher
interview: Tiziana Soudani
film profile
]
by Alice Rohrwacher, and there he speaks German, which was essential for my film, too. I met Sam and was fascinated by him: he is a very intuitive and warm-hearted person. He has a background as a dancer, and since I wanted him to have the charisma of a rock star among other people, it was also very good for us. I liked the accent Sam has when he speaks German. That makes the character special and gives him a certain aloofness.

How did you find the actors who play the children?
We did several casting sessions and tried to find the best chemistry between the actors who would play brother and sister. Claude Heinrich, who plays the role of Paul, is very young but already has a lot of experience. I liked Greta Bohacek as Irina very much because she is 18 and is herself going through the transition from childhood to adulthood.

Was it easy to get funding for the film?
It was quite difficult. I already tried five years ago and got rejected. So then, I made my other film, The Bunker [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, first. It was through this movie that I got in touch with the decision maker at ZDF – Das kleine Fernsehspiel and was able to convince him later on to invest in A Pure Place. It was still a long process, though, because we had to find more institutions and adapt to their procedures.

Why was it important to shoot in Greece?
Half of my family lives there, and I have links to it. I heard a lot of stories and myths related to Greece very early on in my life. There is a big contrast between cities like Athens, which is dirty and loud, and the more remote places. In the summer, the Greeks head to the islands to get away from it all. I wanted to reproduce this. With the motif of the children and the mother, who are very poor, I also wanted to make a comment on how dramatically Greece has been hit by the economic crisis.

What were the biggest challenges in terms of the production of the film?
There were some logistical challenges when it came to coordinating the shoot and to forming the team, which is made up of people from both Germany and Greece. Shooting with animals and children, and on the water, was challenging, too. For most of the team, it was their first time in Greece, so we had to adapt. I wanted to create a visual and musical experience that would drag the viewer into a different world. It had to have something colourful and playful about it. It was important to find the perfect mix.

Is there a message you wish to convey with the film?
I want to attract attention to our society, which tends to organise itself into a class-based system in which some are exploited by others, touting the promise that the ones at the bottom will eventually be able to rise to the top. I also wanted to reflect on the wish of many to cut themselves off from the outside world, and to seclude oneself, calling the others “dirt”.

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