Asimina Proedrou
Hystéra
The lives of three Greek women in Athens intertwine as a series of incidents makes them radically question their identity in a story about motherhood, gender roles, and breaking free.
SYNOPSIS
CHRISTINA (30), sneaking off from her father-in-law’s memorial dinner to make a private phone call, discovers that the blood test results after another IVF attempt are ambiguous. Devastated, she rejoins her husband, YORGOS (38) at the dinner. STAVROULA (40), Yorgos’ cousin, pregnant again, arrives with her husband, MENIOS (42), and their two kids. Christina is jealous, while her mother-in-law, NIKI (75), pointedly declares her wish for grandchildren. Christina, now heavily bleeding, wishing to cover up her shame, lies to Stavroula in secret that she is also expecting a child. On their way home, Menios judges Stavroula for manipulating attention all evening. Stavroula seethes. The next day, she is visited by her friend, LYDIA (38), who admires her unfinished paintings. Stavroula reveals her domestic unhappiness. Lydia listens to her with affection and encourages her to continue painting. Niki takes the bus to the village to re-bury her late husband’s bones. She there finds out that neighbors have been stealing her home’s water, and calls Yorgos for help. Driving to the village, Christina suggests to Yorgos that they stop IVF; Yorgos disagrees. Later, Christina confides in Niki her fertility problems and agrees to get rebaptized in an obsolete fertility ritual. Christina, humiliated, sees herself clearly through her own eyes, and realizes that having children is not what she truly wants. Meanwhile, Stavroula is torn. She shares tender moments of happiness with her children while feeling attracted to Lydia. Trapped in an unhappy marriage and suffocating without expressing herself through her art, she does everything to start painting again, despite Menios pushing her to fully devote herself to raising their children. Christina leaves Yorgos after a fight, and Niki feels guilty for intervening in his life. Niki feels lonely, old, and helpless. Realizing that her life sacrifices were in vain, she deeply grieves - both for her late husband and for the life she missed.
DIRECTOR/WRITER
Asimina Proedrou
PRODUCER
Maria Kontogianni
PRODUCTION COMPANY
Wild At Heart
COUNTRIES
Greece
Slovenia
France
Asimina Proedrou
ASIMINA PROEDROU is a writer-director based in Athens, Greece. She has written and directed two multi-awarded short films. Her debut feature film, BEHIND THE HAYSTACKS (2022), was the official Greek entry for the 96th Academy Awards (International Oscar) and was among the 40 feature films selected for the European Film Awards (Feature Film Selection 2023). The film won 10 Iris awards at the Hellenic (Greek) Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenwriter, while it was nominated for 17—a record-breaking number of nominations in the history of the Institution. It was officially selected, among others, for the Palm Springs International Film Festival 2024, where it was nominated for the Mozaik Bridging the Borders Award; it also won six awards at the 63rd Thessaloniki International Film Festival and the Best Debut Feature Award at the 53rd International Film Festival of India (Goa). The film was critically acclaimed, both locally and internationally, and won great success in Greece, with a major cinema release of more than 30 consecutive weeks. It was among the 5 international films nominated for the 2023 Casting Semiramis Award by the International Casting Directors Association, and among the 10 European films shortlisted for the Goya Spanish Film Academy Awards.
In this age of ”empowerment” and “equality”, Greek society is seemingly making some progress, starting to embrace “diversity” and “sexual identity”. However, at the same time, there is an insidious conservative backlash: marriage, fertility, and motherhood still follow a patriarchal model systematically reproduced by men but also unconsciously by women themselves. Although the film is not autobiographical, I am writing from a place of personal experience of the situations and emotional journeys the characters go through: I have been hysterical about having a child in my mid-thirties; I have felt the despair and the pain of miscarriage, the beauty, the endless pain and violence of childbirth. I have been deeply self-sacrificing as a mother in the past, while today, as a mother of two children, I have enjoyed and still enjoy motherhood endlessly, while having lost sight of who I am on numerous occasions. HYSTÉRA is thus a personal film that explores my own fears and concerns while channeling them through an exciting and healing creative process. The film is a contemporary psychological/social drama with poetic elements related to the female flesh and body. Drawing inspiration from the visual physicality of films such as Andrea Arnold’s FISH TANK (2009) and Nadine Labaki’s CAPERNAUM (2018), in HYSTÉRA the camera will closely follow the female characters, focusing on their faces, their bodies, and their POVs, making for a cinema of intimacy and truth. At the same time, wishing to explore the violence and pain that women experience as society constrains women’s power and sexual expression, the film will also feature nondiegetic expressionistic montage sequences. For these poetic parts, which will be related to the female flesh in a more radical way, my inspirations come from expressionist painters like F. Bacon, L. Freud, S. Guillot, as well as experimental films, such as WINDOW WATER BABY MOVING (1959), in which Brakhage shot a real childbirth.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
Maria Kontogianni
MARIA KONTOGIANNI was born in Athens, Greece. In 2004 she started working in the production of TV commercials and corporate events, and in 2010 she established the 1st International Film Festival of Patmos (IFFP). She then moved to Berlin, where she coordinated and supervised more than 19 awarded feature co-productions on the side of Twenty-Twenty Vision and Pallas Film. As of 2021, she established the company Wild at Heart aiming to create audiovisual works of unique cinematic culture and to foster collaboration between foreign and national talent. She holds a BSc in Business Administration (ACG 2001) and a master’s degree in Audiovisual Management (Media Business School of the European Union, 2011). She is a member of the Hellenic Film Academy and the Audiovisual Producers’ Association of Greece (SAPOE). This year, she was selected as Producer on the Move (Cannes IFF) and was awarded the EAVE Producer Workshop participation for 2025.
Production company profile
WILD AT HEART is an Athens-based film production company, established in 2021 by producer Maria Kontogianni. The company’s aim is to produce international films of unique cinematic culture and to foster long-lasting collaborations between foreign and national talent. Its most recent titles in development are: NINE LIVES LEFT (3D animation feature) by Zacharias Mavroeidis and CONCRETE DREAMS by Spiros Jacovides. Most recent serviced film for the U.S., debut film by Louiza Zouzias, BE A GOOD GIRL. Latest theatrical release is ANIMAL by Sofia Exarchou (Locarno IFF, 2023 - Pardo of Best Performance, 7 Hellenic Film Academy Awards).
Where are we at?
TOTAL ESTIMATED BUDGET
1.300.800 €
FINANCES PENDING
900.800 €
FINANCING IN PLACE
400.000 €
Production timeline
24 JUNE 2025
Financing closure
JULY - SEPTEMBER 2025
Pre-production
OCTOBER 2025
Principal photography day
NOVEMBER 2025 - APRIL 2026
Editing phase and post-production
MAY 2026
Finalization and festival premiere