Syllas Tzoumerkas

Tzoumerkas' first feature film Homeland (Hora Proelefsis) had its world première at the International Critics' Week of the 67th Venice International Film Festival, in 2010. Homeland participated in several international film festivals and won 5 Awards of the Hellenic Film Academy (Best first film director, supporting role actress for Ioanna Tsirigouli, original music, editing and make-up). The script for his second feature film A Blast won the Eurimages Co-production Award at the Cinelink co-production market of the 2012 Sarajevo film festival. A Blast, a Greek-German-Dutch-Italian co-production had its world premiere at the International Competition of the Locarno Film Festival 2014. The film was consequently presented in many international film festivals, most notably Sarajevo international film festival (regional premiere), BFI London Film Festival (Dare), São Paulo International Film Festival (Competition New Directors), Rotterdam International Film Festival 2015 (Limelight), among others. It was theatrically released in several countries (Greece, Germany, Italy, Holland, Poland, Denmark, Australia, etc.) and was picked up for VOD and DVD release in the United States by Indiepix Films. In the international press, the critical reception of the film varied from great and mostly favourable reviews in Screen Daily, Indiewire, The Hollywood Reporter, Der Spiegel to mixed in Variety and negative in We Got this Covered. Syllas Tzoumerkas participated with the essay short film A Manifesto for the Un-Communal, in the omnibus documentary feature Out-of-Place, a German-Israeli production, recipient of the Shimon-Peres Prize 2018. A Manifesto for the Un-Communal had its world premiere as an individual short film at the Locarno International Film Festival 2017 (Out of Competition). In 2019, Syllas Tzoumerkas presented his third feature at the Berlin International Film Festival (Panorama). The Miracle of the Sargasso Sea, a co-production of Greece, Germany, Holland and Sweden, a crime thriller with horror and surrealist undertones, had its premiere at the Zoo Palast. It was nominated for the Panorama Award and the Teddy Award and New Europe Film Sales announced its release in a series of territories within 2019 and its participation in several consequent international film festivals (Beaune International Thriller Festival, Istanbul IFF, BiFan International Fantastic Film Festival, etc.). Critical response was mostly favourable, with Guardian's Peter Bradshaw giving the film 3/5 stars while calling it "a Lynchian psychodrama in the sun" and Savina Petkova of Electric Ghost Magazine giving the film 5/5 stars, writing that "while the film is saturated with Biblical quotes, icons of saints, and church choir songs, its form attends equally to the lowly human, animal, and nature." The Hollywood Reporter, Screen International and Variety praised the film the direction, the bold characters, the imagery and the unflinching performances by Angeliki Papoulia and Youla Boudali, while criticising elements of the script's narrative construction. In 2020, The Miracle of the Sargasso Sea was nominated for 12 Hellenic Film Academy Awards, winning two (Best Director for Syllas Tzoumerkas and Best Actress for Angeliki Papoulia). As an actor, Syllas Tzoumerkas participated in feature films Wasted Youth (2011) by Argyris Papadimitropoulos and Jan Vogel (Rotterdam International Film Festival) and The Eternal Return of Antonis Paraskevas (2013) by Elina Psykou (Berlin International Film Festival). In 2016, Syllas Tzoumerkas co-signed the script and appeared as an actor in Argyris Papadimitropoulos' film Suntan (Rotterdam International Film Festival 2016, SXSW 2016, Best International Film - Edinburgh International Film Festival). Argyris Papadimitropoulos and Syllas Tzoumerkas won the Best Screenplay Award of the FEST International Film Festival and the 2017 Hellenic Film Academy Award for Best Screenplay. In 2019, he co-signed with Ahmad Ghossein and Abla Khoury, the script of Ahmad Ghossein's feature film All This Victory. All This Victory, a co-production of Lebanon, France and Qatar, premiered in Venice Critics' Week 2019, where it was awarded with the Audience Award. In 2020, he appeared as an actor in Argyris Papadimitropoulos' feature film Monday, in the part of Manos.