NikosKatsaounis

Here is some of the work I have directed, produced, shot or edited. Thirty-five projects and a hundred and eighty-nine photographs. Every film plays where it sits.

Nikos Katsaounis · documentary · based in New York, on the road

After · 2017 onward

Feature · Northern Greece

Digger

A contemporary Western about a farmer who lives and works alone in a farmhouse in a mountain forest in Northern Greece. He fights an expanding industrial monster digging up the forest, and then the son he has not seen for twenty years arrives.

Directed by Georgis Grigorakis · Nikos Katsaounis, co-producer · Haos Film

The Berlinale laurel and nine stills, small originals shown at their own size · any one opens large

Cape Town · March 2023

Cloudline

In March 2023 I went to Cape Town to help produce a video for one of Timon Capital's portfolio companies. A story about autonomous airships bringing emergency services to places that are hard to reach.

Produced for a Timon Capital portfolio company ·

Florida · art director

Okeechobee

I am the Art Director for Okeechobee Music x Arts Festival, in Florida.

Four teasers · three on Vimeo, one on YouTube · two festival frames

2 festival frames · any one opens large

Feature documentary · shot 2010–11

Krisis

Once the twenty-seven shorts were done, we wove them into a feature. It explores how Greece and the Greeks are handling the crisis, and it has been broadcast in eight countries.

Shot with DSLR cameras during 2010–11, and selected by more than thirty festivals.

Directed with Nina Maria Paschalidou · broadcast in eight countries · trailer

Online collective documentary · Greece

The PrismGR2011

In the summer of 2010, after years away from Greece, I went back, and with my good friend Nina produced and directed an online multimedia documentary. We put together a team of fourteen photojournalists and held a workshop introducing them to video. Together we made twenty-seven shorts and a feature.

A collective documentation of Greece, and the question I put on it: “what do you see through the Prism?”

Produced and directed with Nina · theprism.tv

A frame from The Prism GR2011 · it moves as you scroll

The Prism · the contact sheet · 105 photographs

105 photographs from The Prism · any one opens large
  • Twenty-seven shorts came out of one workshop. These ten kept their own page.

    09–18 · The Prism GR2011 · shot 2010–11

  • Insomnia

    Athens at night lost its gloss. In the narrow streets of the old centre, junkies numb the pain.

  • Westbound

    Other countries call Greece the gate of illegal immigration to Europe. In 2010, 128,000 crossed.

  • 100+

    Stamatis came home to Ikaria to die thirty years ago. The wind and the wine had other plans.

  • Once Upon a Time

    On Psiloreitis, where Zeus was born, Yagos plays and shows a different way of living.

  • Maria

    Maria is twenty, born with cerebral palsy, a law student who swims for Greece. No ramps.

  • The Writing on the Wall

    More graffiti than any capital in Europe. Art or pollution, and its pioneers answer back.

  • From a Distance

    Manos and Evdokia left Athens for Kythira at different times. The island grew on them both.

  • Local

    Bicycle riders reclaim the cement crust of Athens with guerilla films.

  • Radical Youth

    Teenagers as young as twelve throw stones at the Parliament and call the Molotov a valid means of protest.

  • MC Yinka

    Born in Athens to Nigerian parents, Manolis uses his lyrics as weapons.

  • The other seventeen went into the feature. That is Krisis, next.

    Twenty-seven shorts · one film

Webdoc series · Oregon, September 2018

Oregon GlobalEclipse

In September 2018 I had the privilege to witness my third total eclipse, in Oregon. I helped my dear friend Kevin produce the video capture of it.

Six films came out of it. Two are still up.

Produced with Kevin · globaleclipse.tv

  • Feature documentary

    The SecondWave

    As head of video production at the Oregon Global Eclipse festival, our documentation included this feature by Ryan Frame.

    Directed by Ryan Frame · trailer

  • Australia · 2012

    AustralianEclipse 2012

    A short film I produced for a solar eclipse music festival in the Australian outback, November 2012.

    Australian Eclipse 2012

The road years · city guides and timelapses

Video city guide · Daily Secret

Buenos AiresDaily Secret

Part four, and the last of them, custom directed and produced for Daily Secret.

Part 4 of the video city guide series DSV.

Custom directed and produced for Daily Secret · three digests

Video city guide · Daily Secret

LimaDaily Secret

Part three of the series, custom directed and produced for Daily Secret.

Part 3 of the video city guide series DSV.

Custom directed and produced for Daily Secret · two digests

Video city guide · Daily Secret

AthensDaily Secret

The second of the video city guides, shot for Athens Daily Secret.

The second of the video city guides for Athens Daily Secret.

Custom directed and produced for Daily Secret · three digests

Timelapse · eight sequences

Timelapses

Timelapse sequences I filmed in the various places I have visited. Athens, Lima, Istanbul, Buenos Aires.

Six of them were never titled. They are named here for what is in the frame.

Eight sequences · Istanbul kept its own page, and its own poster

Timelapse · September 2012

Istanbul

One timelapse that kept its own page. Istanbul, September 2012, and no text under it.

So the film is all of it. Fifty-one seconds of Istanbul.

Istanbul, September 2012

Photographs · 2008

Morocco2008

Photographs from my trip to Morocco in 2008. Seventeen of them.

The year after Cuba, and the same camera.

Seventeen photographs · Morocco, 2008

17 photographs · any one opens large

Photographs · 2007

Cuba2007

Photographs from my trip to Cuba in 2007. Ten of them.

My trip, my camera, and no film to make.

Ten photographs · Cuba, 2007

10 photographs · any one opens large
The first frame of the sequence
43 photographs · any one opens large

Forty-three photographs · India

The Truckdriversof India

Some photographs from my travels with the truck drivers of India. Behind the risks and the poverty and the endurance there are these men, who stand on the edge with no support, and stare at you until you look away.

“70,000km of National Highway. 600,000 Long Distance Truck Drivers. that is sort of what this is about. Simply put, but that understates it.”

Forty-three photographs · India

Short film · India

RustCrust Dust

A short film about truck drivers in India. Seventy thousand kilometres of national highway, six hundred thousand long-distance drivers. Simply put, but that understates it.

“I mean, it's sort of about endurance, and back sweat. 39 hours in a cramped smelly box that vibrates nonstop.”

A short film about truck drivers in India

Conference · Athens

TheΣymposium

Formed as a response to the challenges Greece has been facing. Bright fresh minds in one room in Athens, exchanging ideas and cross-pollinating them across disciplines.

That year's subject: “Storytelling in the 21st century”, and whether technology took our narrative or gave it back.

Pilot · never commissioned

MoreThan Zero

A cross-media pilot I produced and co-wrote with Jonathan Stack, about what media does to the stereotype of a Muslim. Sadly it never grew up to be a real show or film.

Produced and co-written with Jonathan Stack

Before Greece · 2008 to 2010

Short · MIT

TransmediaStorytelling

Henry Jenkins directs the Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT. He talks about the power of media in a trans-mediated century, where converging technologies and cultures give rise to a new media landscape.

Henry Jenkins on converging technologies and cultures

Animation sequence

AnimationSequence

The animation sequence from 2012 Time for Change, the film I co-produced. It had its own page, so it keeps one.

From 2012 Time for Change, a film Nikos Katsaounis co-produced

Co-produced, 2008

2012 Timefor Change

A film I co-produced in 2008. Two friends, a writer and an animator, go looking for a paradigm that puts the archaic wisdom of tribal cultures and the scientific method in the same room.

Co-produced by Nikos Katsaounis · interviews with Dean Radin, Paul Stamets, Sting, Ellen Page

Two short films

IRC

Two short films I produced for the IRC.

Syrian Voices from Greece · Lights Out in Syria ·

TEDx · spring 2012

In the spring of 2012 I was invited to talk about the Prism: how you coordinate large groups of photographers to co-create one online documentary, for very little money.

TEDx · on YouTube

Where it began

From the About page

Here is some of the work I have directed, produced, shot or edited. For twenty years I have been fascinated with the new formats that come out of each leap in how media gets made and sent. An Emmy, an honoree selection at the Webby Awards, a finalist place at the Picture of the Year awards.