Bio-graphia

With a title that expresses the connection/disagreement of bios (βίος) = life, and graphi (γραφή) = writing, this film of Rentzis has as a subject “the passage from homo universalis to homo industrialis”. Based on a visual material provided by the collage book of the Basque Chumy Chúmez, the film forms, out of cultural deposits of the industrial era, a novative oneirographic discourse, through the audacious and unprecendeded claim of a combinatorial optimization of collage/montage techno-poetics. Viewing the body as historical ideotype ‘the sublime point of reference, a matrix and a refusal of all signs’, Rentzis, dissects the body of film, makes an inter-parody of historical utopias and certainties and moves between animation and expanded cinema in order to reflect on the broader social, political question of our social coexistence condition, the unity and rupture.

Directed by Thanasis Rentzis, Bio-graphia leans on a strong ensemble — Giorgos Kyritsis — to carry a story that balances spectacle with character.

The film landed with audiences for its craft and performances, and remains one of the most talked-about screen titles of 1975.