Before his return to the Oscars, Yorgos Lanthimos finds a still moment in Athens

Oscar-nominated filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos stepped away from his bustling film schedule this week to unveil a different creative pursuit in his hometown of Athens. The acclaimed Greek director inaugurated an exhibition of 182 photographs, showcasing images captured over the past five years during his filmmaking journeys.

The exhibition, hosted at the Onassis Foundation, presents a collection of color and black-and-white photographs taken with traditional film cameras. Many images were captured while Lanthimos wandered through movie sets, explored nearby neighborhoods, or returned to Greece between film projects.

“In film school you learn that cinema is basically 24 photographs per second,” Lanthimos told reporters at Friday’s opening. “So photography is where it all begins.”

The timing of the exhibition is particularly notable, coming just days before Lanthimos returns to Hollywood for the March 15 Academy Awards ceremony. His latest film, “Bugonia,” has received four Oscar nominations, including best picture and best actress for Emma Stone, who appears in several portraits in the photography collection.

For the 52-year-old director, known for his distinctive and often unsettling cinematic style, photography provides a creative outlet free from the complexities of film production.

“You can be alone with a camera, walking without having something specific in mind,” he explained. “A photograph can have value on its own, but many photographs together can create another kind of value.”

What began as a technical foundation for his filmmaking gradually evolved into something more personal and immediate, offering a stark contrast to the lengthy, collaborative process of movie production.

“You create something and almost immediately it exists,” Lanthimos said, describing the satisfaction of shooting and developing film in a darkroom. “You can take a photograph, print it and hold it in your hands. That satisfaction is very direct.”

This immediacy represents a significant departure from filmmaking, which typically involves months or years of production before a director sees the finished product. Photography allows Lanthimos to work independently, away from the large crews and elaborate planning required for his films.

The exhibition reflects Lanthimos’ evolving artistic vision beyond cinema. While his films like “Poor Things,” “The Favourite,” and “The Lobster” have established him as one of contemporary cinema’s most boundary-pushing directors, his photographic work reveals another dimension of his creative sensibility.

Art critics note that the photographs maintain Lanthimos’ recognizable aesthetic – an often surreal, sometimes unsettling perspective that characterizes his films. However, the still images allow viewers to linger on individual moments in ways that cinema, with its constant forward movement, rarely permits.

For Lanthimos, photography also offers creative flexibility that extends beyond the initial capture. “You can present them in a book, in an exhibition, combine them in different ways,” he said. “There’s a freedom in photography that is very exciting.”

This fluidity appeals to Lanthimos, whose cinematic work often defies conventional storytelling and genre expectations. His photographs, like his films, invite viewers to find their own interpretations and meanings.

While Lanthimos remains committed to filmmaking, he indicated that photography will play an increasingly important role in his creative expression moving forward. The dual creative pursuits appear to complement each other, with photography providing both technical grounding and artistic liberation.

The exhibition, which includes several portraits of his frequent collaborator Emma Stone, offers fans and art enthusiasts a rare glimpse into the director’s creative process beyond cinema. It runs through May 17 at the Onassis Foundation in Athens.

As Lanthimos prepares to attend the Academy Awards ceremony in Hollywood next week, this exhibition serves as a reminder of his multifaceted artistic identity – not just as one of contemporary cinema’s most distinctive voices, but also as a thoughtful visual artist working across multiple media.