Eva Stefani

Directing

Eva Stefani

Born

1964-01-01 (62)

Place of birth

Alexandria, Virginia, USA

Known for

Directing

Credits

35 titles

Eva Stefani is director of documentaries and short experimental films. She was born in the USA and lives in Athens. She has directed over 30 films, ranging from ethnographic to experimental cinema. Her work has been screened at many festivals around the world, winning international awards (Oberhausen, Cinéma du Réel, FIPRESCI, etc.), while film festivals such as the Oberhausen International Short Film Festival and L’Europe autour de l’Europe and universities such as New York University and Columbia in New York have organized tributes to her work. Since 2000, she has participated in international art exhibitions, most notably documenta14 and the Venice Biennale. Her latest art work, entitled…

Known for

The Limousine poster
5.0

Three friends from 60s Paris attempt a road trip to modern-day Greece, looping in and out of fantasy and questioning absolutely everything. A situation comedy and a coming-of-age fairy tale or, according to the director himself, "a film that can be heard". Starring Nikos Kouris, Doukissa Nomikou, Dimitris Katalifos and Pavlos Haikalis. Lifetime Achievement Award to Nikos Panagiotopoulos

The Limousine

2014

Bull's Heart poster
NR

Eva Stefani follows the rehearsals at Onassis Stegi and the international tour of Dimitris Papaioannou’s legendary stage work, Transverse Orientation. Her film is also a portrait of the artist in his effort to give shape and breathe life into his work.

Bull's Heart

2025

No artwork available
NR

A man and a woman make love while listening to the national reveille from the radio.

Reveille

2001

The Box poster
NR

While unearthing an icon of the Holy Madonna in her small apartment, an elderly Greek woman sighs that she is in the inevitable winter of her life. She studies a textbook of the French language, which she used to have a thorough command of, but unfortunately let slide. She hardly reads anymore, either, which she thinks rather stupid of herself. Her window on the world is her television, which she briskly comments on. The bleach-blond anchor woman is very sharp, but her favourite is newsreader Niko. She addresses him as if he were her roommate and cannot keep her hands off the screen. He excites her even more than the fighter jets, volcanic eruptions, protesters, politicians, friendly Turks and black athletes that are the items of Niko's newscast. The Box is a reflection in miniature format about old age and one-way communication in our media-dominated society.

The Box

2004

Athene poster
6.0

The film depicts the life at the Larissa Railway station in Athens in the spring of 1995. The camera focuses on the station’s ‘tenants’, Antonia, Florakis and George..

Athene

1995

No artwork available
NR

Experimental film that combines adult movies from the early 70's, accompanied with the sound of the national anthem of Greece.

National Anthem

2007

Film credits

Behind the camera

Bull's Heart poster
NR

Eva Stefani follows the rehearsals at Onassis Stegi and the international tour of Dimitris Papaioannou’s legendary stage work, Transverse Orientation. Her film is also a portrait of the artist in his effort to give shape and breathe life into his work.

Bull's Heart

2025

Bull's Heart poster
NR

Eva Stefani follows the rehearsals at Onassis Stegi and the international tour of Dimitris Papaioannou’s legendary stage work, Transverse Orientation. Her film is also a portrait of the artist in his effort to give shape and breathe life into his work.

Bull's Heart

2025

No artwork available
NR

A man and a woman make love while listening to the national reveille from the radio.

Reveille

2001

The Box poster
NR

While unearthing an icon of the Holy Madonna in her small apartment, an elderly Greek woman sighs that she is in the inevitable winter of her life. She studies a textbook of the French language, which she used to have a thorough command of, but unfortunately let slide. She hardly reads anymore, either, which she thinks rather stupid of herself. Her window on the world is her television, which she briskly comments on. The bleach-blond anchor woman is very sharp, but her favourite is newsreader Niko. She addresses him as if he were her roommate and cannot keep her hands off the screen. He excites her even more than the fighter jets, volcanic eruptions, protesters, politicians, friendly Turks and black athletes that are the items of Niko's newscast. The Box is a reflection in miniature format about old age and one-way communication in our media-dominated society.

The Box

2004

The Box poster
NR

While unearthing an icon of the Holy Madonna in her small apartment, an elderly Greek woman sighs that she is in the inevitable winter of her life. She studies a textbook of the French language, which she used to have a thorough command of, but unfortunately let slide. She hardly reads anymore, either, which she thinks rather stupid of herself. Her window on the world is her television, which she briskly comments on. The bleach-blond anchor woman is very sharp, but her favourite is newsreader Niko. She addresses him as if he were her roommate and cannot keep her hands off the screen. He excites her even more than the fighter jets, volcanic eruptions, protesters, politicians, friendly Turks and black athletes that are the items of Niko's newscast. The Box is a reflection in miniature format about old age and one-way communication in our media-dominated society.

The Box

2004

Athene poster
6.0

The film depicts the life at the Larissa Railway station in Athens in the spring of 1995. The camera focuses on the station’s ‘tenants’, Antonia, Florakis and George..

Athene

1995

Athene poster
6.0

The film depicts the life at the Larissa Railway station in Athens in the spring of 1995. The camera focuses on the station’s ‘tenants’, Antonia, Florakis and George..

Athene

1995

No artwork available
NR

Experimental film that combines adult movies from the early 70's, accompanied with the sound of the national anthem of Greece.

National Anthem

2007

No artwork available
NR

A film recovered showing two women kissing, accompanied by a Greek folk song.

The Kiss

2007

No artwork available
NR

Through the microcosm of an old coffee shop in Metaxourgeio, in the late 1980s, we witness a neighborhood that is changing radically. The camera records the slow rhythms that govern life in the coffee shop, the rituals of the patrons, the petty conflicts between regulars and non-regulars that can lead from fistfights to hugs, the confessions after drinking, the great friendships, in other words, everything we don't see and don't do in today's "coffee shops".

The Coffee Shop

1998

No artwork available
NR

A short film by Eva Stefani.

Xaire

2025

No artwork available
NR

One short film by Eva Stefani

Last Rose

2017

No artwork available
NR

The documentary follows the two brothers in their daily lives, in their relationship with the other children in the institution and their teachers. The film has the form of a short story. The dramaturgical structure of this story of “the minimum” is inspired by the in-depth observation of everyday events and their orchestration into an “other reality” through editing.

The Chain

1998

No artwork available
NR

Using the archives of different sources, the film tries an alternative reading of Makronisos, an island used as a concentration camp for supporters of the left after the Greek civil war.

Mouth

2019

Bathers poster
8.0

The film follows a summer season in the lives of a group of retired Greek men and women who are regular visitors at various Greek spa towns. Life around Greek spa towns moves slowly with rhythms that are reminiscent of times past. Within this listless atmosphere, people feel free to do and say things they would never be allowed in their respective normal social circles. A sense of freedom and lightness is in the air. Instead of being amongst elderly people, one often gets the feeling of being around a group of teenagers in a summer camp. This joyful atmosphere often alternates with reflections on the past or on death.

Bathers

2008

Acropolis poster
NR

In the film Acropolis (2001/2004), she puts forth a subversive, feminist view of the famous monument. She follows a procedure that is the reverse of observation, putting together existing Super 8 footage with porn and archival material, and by identifying the Parthenon with the female body, she negotiates anew our received notions about Greekness and femininity.

Acropolis

2001

No artwork available
NR

The life of a greek immigrant in New York

From Aris to New York

1996

No artwork available
NR

Through a keyhole.

Hole

2006

No artwork available
NR

A film by Eva Stefani

Paschalis

1993

No artwork available
NR

The film observes the friendship of two inmates of the prison Feltham, a juvenile prison in the suburbs of London. Paul and John spend their days recording songs that they then send to girls they don't know, creating a wire imagination with the outside world. The documentary follows the approach of the "cinema of observation", that is to say, the observation of long duration, narration loose, and lack of leadership during the shooting.

Letters from Albatross

1995

Roommates poster
NR

A film by Eva Stefani

Roommates

1999

No artwork available
NR

A portrait of the writer and translator, lover of the small form, E. C. Gonatas, filmed over the course of a year at his home in Kato Kifissia. The camera silently follows Gonatas everywhere: on his tours of the garden, in old warehouses, immersed in dictionaries, on the floor as he pets a cat. Without ever referring to his writing capacity, the documentary captures many of the elements of his work: his love of nature, the paradox, the futility but also the hilarity of things.

Visiting E. C. Gonatas

1998

What Time Is It? poster
NR

Two men are best friends, but the argue about everything.

What Time Is It?

2007

Only Men poster
NR

Only Men documents the everyday life of several middle-aged men; multiple narratives composed of “infinitesimally small” stories move between realism and paradox, outlining a man’s world in a very different, anti-heroic way, removed from the stereotypical depiction of masculinity. It is of no importance who these men are. They could be a poet, the owner of a taverna in Metaxourgeio, a retired tailor, or a builder meeting an immigrant in a coffee shop.

Only Men

2019

No artwork available
NR

Mr. Lazaridis is a garbage collector in the 11th arrondissement of Paris. Steward believes that, he is very attached to his work and to his comrades. In the following during their work day, we can discover the behind the scenes of a little known trade and especially better understand the everyday lives of these men in green.

La Vie En Vert

1989

Visits to the Home of E. H. Gonatas poster
NR

E. H. Gonatas, one of the most important post-war writers, is a strange case in Greek literature. It was only recently that his poetry and other works received the recognition they deserve. This documentary was filmed in an innovative way, at Gonatas' home.

Visits to the Home of E. H. Gonatas

1996

No artwork available
NR

A monoplane seven minutes about the life of a new-born infant in the incubator.

Incubator

2016

Days and Nights of Dimitra K. poster
NR

Dimitra is a sex worker and president of her union for many years. She loves her work and had been the owner of one of the oldest brothels of Athens, known as ‘Elli’s brothel’. The film is a portrait of Dimitra, with the camera following her in her everyday life, before and after the brothel closed down in 2014. As we get to know her we are faced with questions of desire, exploitation, the right to otherness and political correctness.

Days and Nights of Dimitra K.

2021

Days and Nights of Dimitra K. poster
NR

Dimitra is a sex worker and president of her union for many years. She loves her work and had been the owner of one of the oldest brothels of Athens, known as ‘Elli’s brothel’. The film is a portrait of Dimitra, with the camera following her in her everyday life, before and after the brothel closed down in 2014. As we get to know her we are faced with questions of desire, exploitation, the right to otherness and political correctness.

Days and Nights of Dimitra K.

2021

Manuscript poster
NR

Presented at Documenta 14 in Athens.

Manuscript

2017

No artwork available
NR

A documentary about a Greek woman who sells pretzels on 34th street in New York city. His daily life is interrupted by fragments of his life in the country.

Dirge

1991

No artwork available
NR

A film by Eva Stefani

A Greek from Kazakhstan

1998

Out of Country, In the Prison poster
NR

A film by Eva Stefani

Out of Country, In the Prison

1998