Skip to main content

25.12

25.12




 "To discover our reality we must explore our illusion" Stella Dimadis


25.12 is based on the short story, 'Christmas' written by Thanasis Papastergiou. It has been adapted into a screenplay by me with production on the short film having started in 2014, and completed in 2015. The short film revolves around an older man who faces loneliness on Christmas Day and the actions and repercussions that he goes through, in trying to experience the festivities of Christmas. When most people share Christmas day with their families, organising gifts and feasting on wonderful food, what becomes of those people who don't have anyone to experience Christmas, Easter or associated milestones throughout the year? I explore the foundations of the emotional rollercoaster of such an experience through the use of colour, the landscape, music and the art of film to exemplify this mental state.

It was easy for me to see the film before production as I had already seen what loneliness looked like. For me it was a place that not many dared to go, but many found themselves in; a scary place; futile, alienating, inhuman and brutal.

I hope that in seeing the film the audience can come away armed with a little bit of responsibility in reaching out to older people whose lives may not be as full of family and friends as initially thought.  

Leonidas, the protagonist, is played by Antonios Baxevanidis, a well known Melbourne actor and photographer. He artfully portrays the emotions whilst he goes through the motions of the day, starting off by wrapping and preparing Christmas gifts, which he gives away to two strangers on a train, only to find himself in a restaurant where he beckons his dead family. The audience is left wondering of the philosophical conversation around the dinner table is in fact occurring or is it merely a figment of his imagination. The surreality of the film captures the psychological state of Leonidas' mind. He finds himself by the beach, listening to Vivaldi's Spring, played by Theano Milides as he recounts a verse written by Thanasis Papastergiou and ventures off into the cool, dark blue waters of the beach.



Leonidas is supported by Nicole Chamoun, as his mother, Jim Koutsoukos, as his father, Faezeh Parkes, Karl Peschek, as his grandparents, and Peta Nasopoulos as his younger sister. With flashbacks and stories, the viewer is drawn into a past world during world War II, where the family is touched by war, famine, disease and finally death for some of the family members. An overall cast and crew of forty five people helped to bring the film together, with a special mention of Con Filippidis who was the Cinematographer and expertly coordinated to bring the colour, light and characters to life, mindfully acknowledging my need to have each frame perceived as art in its own right.

25.12 will have its first private screening on the 5th of July, 2015, before it heads off to festivals worldwide.

This is some of the marketing that has been used for 25.12 in describing the storyline.















Stella Dimadis
July 2015.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Memories are the key not to the past, but to the future.

"Memories are the key not to the past, but to the future. "   Corrie Ten Boom Corrie Ten Boom was a Dutch watchmaker, who had helped many Jews escape during the Holocaust, was a prisoner and then a writer.  She held many memories, no doubt, fears; images that would stay forever and haunt her, but they were able to unlock a future for her that she would never have imagined.  Her writing and her boldness initiated her knighthood by the Queen of the Netherlands, The King's College in New York City named a new women's house in her honour, her book "The Hiding Place", was  made into a feature film, twice. Locked away in our computer hard drives are examples of our work and lives that we lock away when our computer sleeps, forgetting about their importance because we are always told to focus on the now, forgetting about our past.  Well, perhaps it is time that we also learn to love our past, regardless of what it was like, so that we can understand what our...
Post a Comment
Read more
  Apocalyptic Art 'This is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper." T.S Eliot For centuries, artists and creatives alike have depicted the Apocalypse, which is the fantastical, unimaginable end of the world and all life on it.  At some point it is going to happen, maybe about 5 million years away when the sun burns out, so perhaps it is this truth that has artists thinking of what this end may look like.  Since it will happen, down the track. Recently it has felt like humanity was in the midst of it with the advent of Covid, but also with the devastation that climate change has been and is inflicting on the land and people globally.  It is very easy to start to think of the end, grim as that may sound. When I had created yesterday's art piece, even though I wasn't happy with the art work, I was very much intrigued by the colours in the background which reminded me of an apocalyptic feel, vibe.  So today's challenge I set ...
1 comment
Read more

Silver Linings Playbook-Cinematography

Cinematography "Photography is truth.  The cinema is truth 24 times per second." Jean-Luc Godard. It comes as no surprise that I made a point of watching 'Silver Linings Playbook', directed by David. O Russell for the one and only  reason that Bradley Cooper is the lead.  I admire his ease and fluidity as an actor in front of the camera, coupled with the control that his eyes muster with each line of dialogue that he delivers.  'Silver Linings Playbook' revolves around Bradley Cooper who plays Pat Solitano, a teacher with Bipolar disorder who has been released from the psychiatric hospital, under the care of his mother, Jacki Weaver and his father, played by Robert De Niro.  He is determined to win back his ex wife, but in the interim meets Tiffany Maxwell, played by Jennifer Lawrence, a recently widowed sex addict who tells him that she will help him get his wife back, providing he enters a dance competition with her.  It is a feel good story by ...
Post a Comment
Read more