Bad Kids with Saint Names

Like all movies, this one started from an idea. In my case, the idea had been dormant inside me for a while, until it woke up one afternoon in 2020. I was with a friend of mine in the center of Thessaloniki, who would later became the production manager of the film. Suddenly, I saw a boy, aged 13-14, coming out of an apartment building. He quickly glanced at the balconies, took a cigarette out of the faded pocket of his uniform, lit it, and passed by us while puffing it demonstratively and looking at us. Then, someone we knew who happened to be passing by the same alley at that time said to us: "Look at how he's smoking it, he doesn't have any parents to discipline him?".

This sentence acted as the starting point for the idea in my head. Kids who are "abandoned" by their parents, kids who "do not have" an adult to talk to them about the world, they create their own path with the way that works best for them. So the desire that I had stored inside me for many years was reborn, to "talk" about my teenage years, my friends, the family that I chose, the many aspects of a teenage friendship especially when one of them is experiencing violent behaviors.

To begin with, the protagonist of our story is Michalis, a 16-year-old boy who experiences violence at home. His friends mean everything to him, but he hasn't told them anything about Yiannis (his stepfather). In the movie, we follow his last day in town before leaving for work with his stepfather as he demanded for several months. The group will spend a day that won't be easy but full of adrenaline, flirting with illegality, laughing, betraying, with their sole goal of having fun at a concert. There, Michalis will have to confront his fears and manage to speak up against his stepfather's violent behavior for the first time, always with the support of his friends.

One of the most important things in the process of creating "Bad Kids with Saint Names" was to serve the story through the eyes of Michalis and as the plot progresses the focus shifts from Michalis to the group as a whole.

I wasn't aiming for a dramatic approach of shooting Michalis since the protagonist himself hasn't yet embraced his feelings, puts up barriers, and doesn't even let his friends know what's going on. Therefore, I was sure that I didn't want the audience to find out before Michalis' friends that Yiannis is violent towards him.

For this reason, the way in which the violent paternal figure would be depicted was very important. I didn't want us to fall into the trap of the bully-monster, or the "ideological gaslighting," the belief that bullies are different from us and we will never be like them, which seems both reassuring and hypocritical at the same time. I wanted us to create a manipulative character, one who doesn't look like a monster, who at times may offer to teach Michalis things, but the next moment can turn violent, this is what confuses the child-adolescent brain the most. This pattern of transitioning from something calm to something intense is mainly emphasized through visual and auditory transitions from scene to scene.

One last crucial thing that was fundamental was the dream-like element, I used slow motion combined with the imposing presence of music, I tried to give a feeling of nostalgia, a sense that what is happening in these scenes is not entirely grounded in reality. In conclusion, if someone watches 'Bad Kids with Saint Names', I would like for them to awaken emotions, to reminisce about some moments of their adolescence, and to wonder if they need to start their own revolution against something that suffocates them.