Even so, this film feels very “meta”. There are actors who pretend they’re someone else pretending they’re someone else…

And some of the people in the film aren’t even real actors...

We’ll get to that later, but let’s start with the ambiguity of their roles: was it just a mindgame you and your co-scriptwriter Efthymis Filippou came up with to mess with the audience’s head?

Not at all. We had no interest in doing anything like that. What we wanted to explore was this particular situation, the conceit of someone deciding to do this for a living. The fact that they can stand in for someone who’s dead, either for financial gain or for personal reasons, like the nurse. Which is more or less true of all of them to a certain extend.

Do you feel that people read more into your films than you ever intended? That your film can be interpreted as a metaphor on the Greek financial crisis, like someone said at the press conference? Is that a conscious effort or does it bother you when it happens?

Not at all, I welcome it. I consciously try to make room for the viewer’s projections in my films. I don’t mind it at all, although I’m sometimes very surprised when they see aspects we never even considered while making the film. But it was certainly intentional on our part. We made a conscious decision not to explore every avenue open to us, I think we would have gotten lost. You can’t possibly make an accurate story if you explore or hint at every possible angle. We would have ended up in complete chaos. I feel you need to focus on your characters and the story you want to tell in a much simpler way and allow the viewer to draw their own conclusions based on their personal experiences, their own beliefs and their mood while watching the film. Because I’m convinced your mental and emotional state plays an important part. Under different circumstances this might feel like an entirely different movie.

Getting back to the actors, I bet people always wonder about the acting style in your films. “Is that even proper acting?” I can hear them say. What is proper acting to you?

(Laughs). I don’t know. To me it’s more appropriate than anything else. I can’t stand watching actors who think they’re being naturalistic. There is no such thing. When I see actors trying to reenact feelings and situations, I sometimes get really embarrassed. I can see right through it. And yes, there are some who are really brilliant and can get away with it, but even so it’s still part of the conceit. Besides, there’s so few of them and they’re so well known. When you see someone like Daniel Day Lewis doing it you accept it, but what you’re watching is in no way realistic. As for me, I try to keep the performances simple. I don’t want anyone to think that what they’re doing is realistic, I want it to be clear it’s part of the film’s conceit. I do however try to combine all these elements in a way that will give me what I want. You can still tell when a character is upset even if they’re just standing in front of the window, because you’ve just seen someone die. You don’t need to show the character crying to communicate the emotion, the way they’re standing there is enough. And that, to me, is a lot more real: constructing every element of the film in a way that’s emotionally convincing without actually having to demonstrate emotion.

I think you’re trying to make your actors forget everything they learned in drama school.

That’s sad but true. But the things they learn have more to do with theater than cinema. A film can’t possibly function in the same way a play would, it’s a completely different situation. In cinema, even if someone is doing absolutely nothing, you can still capture so many different things just by focusing the camera on them, it instantly becomes compelling. We can’t really talk about realism in cinema – not even documentaries are realistic. Anything documented is instantly transformed into something else through the sheer power of conveyance.

Which is why I assume you use very specific actors and this time some of them are even amateurs.

Yes, I choose actors who can cast off their training. In a certain way, they’re the actors who act the least (laughs). They can exist within the film the same way a non-actor would, their attitudes are pretty similar. As for the amateurs, I choose them because I feel they are right for what I’m trying to do. I’m not trying to make them into something else - even if they do end up getting transformed by becoming part of the conceit. But they contribute so much with their personalities, the way they talk, the way they move, the way they react, that everything becomes more interesting, more real.

You announced you will be shooting a project outside of Greece, is it something you’re at liberty to talk about?

Not yet. There are a few projects we’re working on in the UK and I’m reading a few scripts from the States and writing something new with Efthymis that’s set outside of Greece. There are a lot of things up in the air right now and there’s no telling which one will move forward but none of it is going to be in Greece. I just don’t see how. “Alps” was hard enough.

Difficulties aside – that’s a given when you’re working in Greece – do you feel there’s a certain animosity or even jealousy towards you?

I certainly don’t feel like there’s any support. When “Dogtooth” has made it to the Oscars and has won so many awards and I still have to ask people to come and work for free, when I have to put up my own money and ask friends to invest 10-20.000 Euros and the Greek Film Center finally decides to go in on the movie after we’ve taken all the risk, after the film has already been accepted in Venice, Toronto and London, then I feel… I don’t know if it’s animosity or indifference, but I certainly don’t feel like there’s any kind of support. It never feels like you’re doing something praiseworthy, something important that deserves all the help it can get.

But that doesn’t mean you won’t be making another Greek movie.

I’m very interested in Greece, but right now I’m just too exhausted. “Alps” was made with a lot less money than “Dogtooth”, which is simply unfathomable. We just decided to go ahead with it and, as it turns out, we were right and it’s all down to Tsangari. She’s the one who insisted we move ahead with the production when we didn’t have a dime. I’d be like “You’re out of your mind, how are we going to pull this off, we have nothing!” and she’d say “Don’t worry, once we get going, the money will follow”. And, true enough, if we hadn’t made the film, we would have never made it to Venice and the money would have never materialized. But we did and it’s already been accepted to all these festivals. We had to make a lot of compromises, but not making the film at all would have been even worse. That’s why I’m trying to make something more respectable elsewhere, with people who appreciate what I do. I’ve been struggling here all these years and I suddenly go to England and I tell Channel Four I’ve had to go back to advertising to survive and they say “What are you writing these days? Why don’t we give you some money so you can come work over here instead?” It’s a little ironic that the English would offer me money, so I don’t have to waste my time on commercials and I can focus on my next film, while in Greece I always end up having to beg…

Alps

Synopsis: A Nurse, a Paramedic, a Gymnast and her Coach have formed a service for hire. They stand in for dead people by appointment, hired by the relatives, friends, or colleagues of the deceased. The company is called Alps while their leader, the Paramedic, calls himself Mont Blanc. Although the Alps members operate under a discipline regime demanded by their leader, the Nurse doesn’t…

• Watch a first film clip, photos and the Venice press book of the film below.

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos Screenplay: Yorgos Lanthimos & Efthimis Filippou Producers: Athina Rachel Tsangari & Yorgos Lanthimos Head of Production: Maria Hatzakou Director of Photography: Christos Voudouris Editor: Yorgos Mavropsaridis Cast: Aggeliki Papoulia, Aris Servetalis, Johnny Vekris, Ariane Labed

Alps are due to greek cinema theaters on October 27th.