Greek filmmaker Vassilis Mazomenos, known for his surreal visual style, politically charged themes, and a body of work showcased at major international festivals from Montreal and Tallinn to Cairo and Sitges, is competing in the International Competition of the 43rd Fajr International Film Festival with his film “Endless Land.”
The film follows Lazarus, a young man in a remote Epirus village who, after his father’s death, navigates loss, loneliness, migration, and the search for memory and identity. With multiple awards, international recognition, and experience serving on festival juries, Mazomenos continues to shape contemporary Greek cinema through his distinctive artistic vision.
In this interview, he speaks about the essence of poetry in cinema and the relationship between audiences and poetic filmmaking.
What is “Endless Land” about, and what message do you hope to convey to global audiences?
The film is about loss – the emptying of nature, the loneliness of human beings in this vast emptiness, and the ways we can rediscover our roots. If we love and respect our past, we will grow better trees for our future. That is the most important thing in the entire universe.
The theme of this year’s Fajr International Film Festival is poetic cinema. What does poetry mean to you in filmmaking?
Poetry has nothing to do with literature. It follows its own paths – it plays with your inner world and speaks the language you carry inside yourself. In poetic cinema, action is the action of song, not the action of the eyes.
How can poetic cinema express the passion of this art form?
The answer lies with the audience, but only with an audience that has an open heart – someone ready to receive the passion I place on the screen and feel passion in return. Commercial cinema needs closed-minded people, non-thinkers, people who are not real citizens.
In an era where everything has become extremely fast and images surround us everywhere – from mobile phones to giant screens – how is it still possible to make poetic cinema?
That is the very difficult question of our time. Life has turned into a hyper-speed condition; images are everywhere. To prevent poetry from being destroyed, we must move toward other dimensions of existence. Otherwise, poetry will collapse and merge with the world of pure spectacle. These are two completely different worlds. You cannot connect them – it would be ridiculous. It’s like saying Greek and Persian are the same language. Language is civilization, and the difference between languages is the difference between civilizations.
Today many people compare cinema to Netflix and fast-paced series. How do you view this world?
People see the world in two ways: some materially, others differently. I, like many poets, have my roots in the poetic cinema of the silent era and its great masters. When you watch a good, respectable action movie, it’s like eating an enormous meal – when you leave the theater, you’re so full you can’t eat anything else. Poetic cinema is not like that.
What motivated you to participate in the 43rd edition of the Fajr International Film Festival?
It’s obvious – Fajr is one of the most important film festivals in the world. It’s a great honor to be here. I received an official invitation, and my film was immediately accepted into the international competition. How could I say no to such an opportunity?
