The edge of time

I was born and raised in Rethymno, Crete. My love for storytelling began at a young age. I was a high school student when I started turning stories into illustrations, drawing and sketching. As I grew older, I thought the wisest choice for me would be to pursue a career in art in the future. Coming from a medical family, however (my father a doctor of medicine and my mother a pharmacist), I decided to ignore this thought and follow in my parents' footsteps. Indeed, at 18, I went to Italy, where I took exams and was accepted into the faculty of Pharmacy. During the roughly 10 years I spent there, along with my studies, I began developing an interest in photography and film. I was intrigued by the way light worked, even though I couldn't fully understand it yet. I was fascinated by the fact that the same subject under different lighting told a different story. Using an old Zenith camera my father owned, I started taking photos and becoming familiar with concepts such as aperture, shutter speed, ISO, etc. Just before graduating from Pharmacy, I bought my first DSLR and started wondering whether the path I had chosen was indeed the right one. For the second time, I decided to ignore this thought, got my degree and returned to Greece. Afterward, I completed my military service, opened a pharmacy in Chania, Crete, and began practising the profession I had studied. Around that time, I reconnected with a childhood girlfriend-the enthusiasm of meeting was enough to lead to a marriage that gifted me two beautiful sons. Time was passing, and alongside running my pharmacy, I was taking online courses in architectural photography, image processing and 3D visualisation, which were the areas I was mostly interested in. I upgraded my equipment and began working professionally as an architectural photographer.
Architectural photography was my first encounter with directing! I developed an eye for what should be inside or outside the frame. I got to know light and its properties in depth - how the mood can change depending the angle of light source and its temperature. How the subject's form can vary depending on the focal length of the lens. Eventually, I learned to envision the result and work carefully to make the image I had in my mind a reality. Gradually, everything started to connect, I had written some stories and now I also had the means to tell them.
As far as filmmaking is concerned, I am self-taught. I started making short films with my brother always by my side and learned through the process. I learned how to make the most out of the film budget. I learned how to interact with those in front of and behind the camera and convey them what I had envisioned. For every 10 things I learned, 20 questions arose and so I continued until I familiarized myself with the technical aspect of filmmaking. I have personally worked in every possible position required to make a film except that of an actor.
The thought of an artistic career, which I had consciously ignored as a child and as a student, had now become a necessity that I could not overlook! For the first time, I knew what I needed to do. I needed to stop spreading my energy around and focus on what truly interested me. In 2020, I stopped operating the pharmacy and exclusively devoted myself to my artistic pursuits, both professionally and otherwise.