After two decades as a leading costume and set designer in Greece, artist Eva Nathena has stepped behind the camera to direct her first feature with Murderess.
Based on Alexandros Papadiamantis’ popular novel The Murderess — a seminal piece of literature in Greece — the film is set in 1900s Greek society in which Hadoula (Karyofyllia Karabeti), an older woman trapped in her own mother’s rejection, struggles to survive the dictates of a patriarchal society. She turns to murdering young girls in the town, to “release” them from their social fate.
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“I first read the book when I was 16 in high school,” Nathena said. “They teach us this great novel in school, and I felt a very strange familiarity with the main character. And I was frightened. How could I ever be related to a woman that kills babies? So I took some distance from the book.”
Nathena said she revisited the book after learning of a past trauma in her mother’s life. At that point, she said, the philosophical depth of the book’s plot began to reveal itself.
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“I realized it wasn’t her actions that gave me this sense of familiarity with her. It was her traumas,” she said. “It was very similar to my mother’s traumas. So in 2009 I decided to go deeper and created a file on my laptop called ‘movie’ because I was sure it must be a movie. I had to tell this story in a movie. I was waiting for a great director to be found. But my producer Dionyssis Samiotis said, ‘If I take this on, Eva, please you should direct it.’ And I said yes.”
In September, Murderess was selected as Greece’s submission for the Best International Feature Film category at the 97th Oscars after a turbulent selection process. The film also clocked the highest box office figures of 2023 in Greece. The bulk of the reported audience was young people across Greece who had connected with the story.
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“We had a firm belief that the movie would talk to the hearts of everyone,” Samiotis said of the film’s box office success. “It is so local, but at the same time, it’s so international. The subject matter touches very sensitive threads of your soul. You’re born and raised in a society with specific behaviors that are standard, but this movie comes and asks you to look back and see what’s going on. Look at your mother, your sister, your friends. See what’s going on, and go deeper and ask why.”
Samiotis added: “That’s why we now want to cross the borders because it’s not the issue of a small society. It’s an issue of the whole world.”
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Check out the panel video above.