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Thanos Psichogios: There’s Something Deeply Moving About The Quiet Sacrifices Parents Make
Thanos Psichogios studied political science at the University of Athens and filmmaking at the London Film School.
Thanos Psichogios studied political science at the University of Athens and filmmaking at the London Film School. All his fiction short films and feature film screenplays are adaptations of celebrated contemporary Greek literature and have received awards at international film festivals. His film KITE was screened in the in the Competition Programme - Documentary Film at the 31st Sarajevo Film Festival.
Your film is a combination of documentary footage, narration, animation and fiction. Which of the three is your favorite?
I don’t think in terms of favorites, I’m most inspired by how these forms interact and enrich each other. That’s what draws me to documentary: its openness to experimentation, its ability to hold fiction, animation, voice, and reality in the same space. What I aim for is a synthesis, an emotionally layered narrative that feels truthful and complex, where each element serves the story without beautifying or diluting its essence. It’s not about technique, it’s about resonance.
It's nice to go back in your mind to your childhood and remember the carefree, happy moments of closeness with your parents. Can memories give us comfort and security when we fear losing a parent?
Yes, I believe memories, especially joyful ones from childhood, can offer deep comfort and a quiet kind of strength. They remind us of the emotional landscapes we carry within us. What fascinates me is how memory is not fixed, it reshapes itself depending on our feelings, our needs, our stage in life. That fluidity can be healing. In telling this story, I wanted to explore how the past is never just behind us, it’s something we return to and reinterpret, and in that way, it keeps nourishing us.
Are our parents what keeps us firmly on the ground and allows us to fly, even though they skinned their palms to the point of blood?
Yes, there’s something deeply moving about the quiet sacrifices parents make. They’re the ones who anchor us, but also the ones who slowly, painfully, let us go. Parenting, to me, is this ongoing act of love that lives in the tension between holding on and releasing. The strength it takes to do both—to support a child’s first steps and their eventual flight—is something I find both heartbreaking and beautiful. It’s in that space of struggle and grace that so much of life happens.