Award-winning filmmaker says Greece ‘no longer fulfills needs’

Internationally acclaimed director Yorgos Lanthimos has admitted he had to leave Greece in order to make progress as a filmmaker.

“I moved to England because the way we worked in Greece no longer fulfilled my needs,” the 43-year-old filmmaker said in an interview with Germany’s Die Welt newspaper published on Thursday.

“There was a handful of people who made films, because they love films. But nobody was paid, everyone had to mortgage his car or clothes to make ends meet,” said Lanthimos, whose latest psychological thriller, “The Killing of a Sacred Deer,” won best screenplay at Cannes Film Festival.

“I wanted to make real films. If I wanted to progress as a filmmaker, I had to leave home,” he said.