Director and screenwriter, Christos Pitharas, a Deree ‘05 graduate, recently took part in the 57th Thessaloniki Film Festival, and in “Premiere Nights” of the Athens Film Festival with his feature film Bliss. The film is centered on the main character, Anna, a young woman with an altered perception of reality.
Anna is a woman who spends all her free time on Facebook. She feels lonely among friends, colleagues, and family. It is difficult for her to have a social life, which is why she often makes up lies about parties and excursions that never happened, and her love life lives within the internet’s limits.
During the regular route between her house and place of work, she makes two stops: one at the convenience store to “steal” gum, and one at her mother’s house whose priority is to take care of her flowers and not Anna. Her routine carries on until a man with a red jacket appears who seems to stalk Anna’s every step. With this new element, every aspect of her life becomes unbearable under the pressure of the red jacket, and her obsession to find this person develops into a psychosis.
Bliss is a “psychograph” of a woman who gradually loses touch with reality. The combination of the tragic and comedic elements of the movie successfully shine a light on how Anna’s perception can become distorted, and it guides us through how she sees life.
The Team
Director: Christos Pitharas
Screenwriter: Christos Pitharas
Photography: Evgenios Dionisopoulos, Nikos Thomas
Actors: Ksanthi Spanou, Themis Bazaka, Dimitris Alexandris, Christos Sterioglou, Stavros Simeonidis, Mirto Panagou, Yannis Milonas, Katerina Papandreou
About Christos Pitharas
Christos was born in Athens, in 1981, and studied Communication at Deree. He graduated in 2005, and continued his studies by earning a master’s degree in Film Direction from the Edinburgh College of Art. The Deree alumnus has directed many short films and theatrical plays over the years. His first feature film Bliss premiered nationally on September 30, 2016, and internationally on April 23, 2017, at the acclaimed Buenos Aires International Film Festival. He is currently in the development stage for his new feature film, Half.
