Short film Bleat | Emma Stone reunites with director Yorgos Lanthimos

(Athens) American actress Emma Stone and Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos team up again for a silent and dark short film, shot in black and white on a windswept Greek island.

Addressing death and necrophilia and inspired by the rugged landscapes of the island of Tinos, bleating (Bleat) is the duo’s first collaboration since their Oscar nominations in 2019 for The Favorite.

This new 30-minute short film, in which the French actor Damien Bonnard also plays, is screened on Friday in Athens as a world premiere. It was filmed in February 2020 atop the hills of Tinos, a large arid island northeast of Athens.

Goats figure prominently in it, but despite the film’s title, you don’t hear the slightest bleat or noise.

“There were a lot of goats… I find that they are fascinating animals” in “the way they live, move around, survive,” Yorgos Lanthimos told AFP.

“The landscape itself and the atmosphere there were the first inspiration,” he added, pointing out that for this film he wanted “silence”, only accompanied by orchestral music.

Dark, the short is set mostly in a traditional Greek house and is entirely silent, which Emma Stone says she really enjoyed.

“It was a dream,” she said at a press conference on Thursday. “If I could work only in silence, it would be a delight.”

An experience also considered liberating by the director: “I generally think that restrictions can help create something. When you have too many resources at your disposal, you can easily get lost.”

Emma Stone plays a young widow who organizes a wake for her late husband in a traditional Greek house. Unable to let go, she adopts an unorthodox method of mourning, in a film that mixes elderly matrons, nudity and sex.

Most of the people appearing in the film are locals from Tinos with no “professional experience” as actors.

“We went around the island, we met people and we cast them…non-professional actors can be really amazing,” observes Yorgos Lanthimos.

The film’s promoters did not reveal its budget, but clarified that Emma Stone had not received any fees due to her friendship with the director.

She had played for Lanthimos in the black comedy of 18^and century The Favoritewhich earned them nominations for Best Supporting Actress and Best Director at the 2019 Oscars, respectively.

“Keep Growing”

“I feel very safe with him, he challenges me,” said the American actress. “What’s the point of continuing to do, no offense, this rather stupid job of acting, if you don’t continue to push yourself, grow and challenge yourself? “.

While reading it, Emma Stone found the script “so thrilling, unlike anything (she) had done before” and “immediately wanted to do it”.

“Is this the most artistic thing I’ve done? I guess so,” she concluded, laughing.

Bleat will be screened at the Greek National Opera from May 6 to 8, accompanied by live music, through works by Bach, Nystedt and Hosokawa performed live by the Maria Callas Quartet and the Choir of ERT, the Hellenic Television Broadcasting.

At 48, Yorgos Lanthimos has won acclaim for his absurd films that emerged from the “weird wave” that developed as Greece neared bankruptcy in 2010.

His film Canine was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2011 Oscars, while his English-language feature debut The Lobster was nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the 2017 Oscars.