In 2012, Jacqueline Lentzou picked up the phone from her cousin in Athens, Greece. She remembers the exact date: June 19th. Lentzou was 20 years old and was studying to be a director at the London Film School. “My cousin told me,‘ Your dad is in the hospital. He doesn’t talk, he doesn’t walk. You have to go back. ‘”He was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
For the next 18 months, she became her father’s caregiver. At the time, it seemed like his directorial career had ended before it started properly: “The only thing that kept me from believing that it was all over was the fact that I would make a film about it. Since 2012 I know this would be my first role. I had to do it to move on in my life. “
A decade later, this feature has been made. His name is Moon, 66 Questions and he is as fierce, intense and thoughtful as Lentzou, speaking in a video call from his home in Athens. Since the film premiered in Berlin last year, it hasn’t spoken publicly about its autobiographical beginnings, until now. He was worried that the story of his life would be a distraction. “I do not hide it, but at the same time I am not too open. Just because I would never, ever want the real event of the film “—it puts“ real event ”between invisible commas—“ to draw the attention of the real film. ”In addition, he adds,“ The real story is much harder. “
Moon, 66 Questions is totally in the artistic tradition, unconventional and challenging unsentimental (although in the end it’s very emotional). Sofia Kokkali plays Artemis, who flies home to Athens after her father is hospitalized. As the only child of divorced parents, his extended, wealthy, conservative, church-going family expects him to care for his father, even though he has barely spoken to him for years. Artemis spends most of the film boiling with resentment and anger.
Is gender a factor? In his own life, would Lentzou have been asked to give up everything if he had been a son? She shakes her head. “No,” she replies with a thin, ironic smile. “If I was a kid, they would call me just to go pay a visit and then send me to work.”
Lentzou wanted to show what it is like to live in man-dominated Greece; women’s expectations and “toxic” homophobia. His script includes a gay character who has lived in the closet for many years. “My film is deeply and above all about patriarchy, and this suppression that people have to go through and deny their own soul. This is the heart of the film. It would not exist if patriarchy did not exist ”.
I think it’s impossible to change diapers on your dad knowing he’s your dad
He speaks a week after the high-profile conviction of two men for killing Zak Kostopoulos, a 33-year-old LGBTQ + activist in Athens. Witnesses described the attack as a lynching. Four police officers, also accused of causing fatal bodily harm, went free. Lentzou looks furious; for the first time, he is speechless. “He was killed with a kick in the center of Athens at four in the afternoon. I have goosebumps telling you this story. Imagine, this is in Athens, the capital. I don’t want to know what’s going on in the other smaller cities in Greece. “
In the film, she doesn’t punch with her honest portrayal of an adult child caring for a father. The camera keeps shooting during the snippets a Hollywood movie would cut: Artemis ’unbearable embarrassment at seeing his father in the bathroom for the first time or changing his incontinence pants.
What happens when you take care of a sick father is that you switch between the caregiver and the daughter, Lentzou says. “It simply came to our notice then. Artemis could not take him to the bathroom believing she was the daughter. Then she’s not the daughter, she’s just there to help him. Then she returns to the role of daughter. I think it’s impossible to change your father’s diapers knowing he’s your father. ” Everything is a little too much for some. “There are people who are shocked, for sure, because they think the film is very hard. That’s a lot on the face.”
“Artemis spends most of the film boiling with resentment and anger.” Sofia Kokkali plays Artemis and the Moon, 66 Questions. Photography: Moon, 66 Questions movie photo
Lentzou also does not feed his audience. We never know anything about Artemis: where she lives, what she does for a job. But in Kokkali’s brilliant performance, in the little glasses he gives of Artemis’s coldness, toy, and inner touch of life, we have an image of who he is. This retention has caused some scratches in Greece, says Lentzou: “Some people are boring, which I understand perfectly. It was one of my biggest risks, to make a potentially difficult film to watch. But as a viewer, I I like to see something that challenges me. “
At this point, our interview is interrupted by the barking of your dog from the hallway. “She never barks,” Lentzou says, advancing toward the door to let in a ball of hairy skin that bounces off her lap. “Our interview has become too personal now,” he laughs.
Lentzou grew up with his mother, grandmother and dogs. As a child, she dreamed of being a writer. “I was alone most of the time, watching movies and TV 24 hours a day. They were my best friends, but I never thought I could make movies.” Then, at the age of 14, he had an epiphany while watching Gus Van Sant’s Elephant on television, about a high school shooting. “I was shocked. It was my first feature film. Until then, I was just watching main things: Scorsese, you know, funnier things. When I saw Elephant, I was drawn in body and soul to the silence of the film. film. I couldn’t believe my eyes. And I knew, “This is my job.”
Lentzou has a tattoo, two words inked on the inside of his forearm: “Ext Night” – script slang for the outer night. She laughs when I point to her, “You know what’s funny? I did it for free when I was 16, when making movies was a dream. Then it happened, and that, “the tattoo points out,” is the worst of the cheesiest. “
Watch the Moon trailer, 66 Questions.
After caring for his father for a year and a half, Lentzou stayed in Greece when care professionals took over. He felt he could not leave. “It had to be close; I couldn’t disappear. I had to go and teach them to be there with him. “Little by little, he began directing a series of award-winning short films with a team of friends. Looking back, having been forced to work in Greece could have been a blessing: “Things were faster. I was filming at my house with my people, on a low budget. I don’t think I could have done that anywhere else. “
He took his time to do Moon, 66 Questions, writing the screenplay over the years between shorts. “I needed, first of all, to practice and make my cinematic language as perfect as possible. Because this film could have been a very easy, cheesy and melodramatic film. “
During the edition, people bothered her to add a dedication to her father, who is still alive. Or opens with the title, “Based on a Real Story.” Lentzou rolls her eyes and dismisses the idea. “I’m like: no! I want someone to be attracted to the movie by the movie itself!”
Now he’s finally thinking about going back to London, or maybe New York: “Somewhere where I can do my job as I deserve to do my job.”
Moon, 66 Questions is in UK cinemas from 24 June