Kostis Glykantzis | We Love Loris Loran So Much

A small group of young actors has founded an unconventional film club dedicated to protecting and promoting the work of the internationally acclaimed Greek filmmaker Loris Loran. Devoted admirers of his work, they have created a daily program centered around his films, including screenings, discussions, quizzes, games, and acting exercises inspired by his cinematic universe. When, however, one member of the group dares to describe a sequence from the director’s latest film as “not particularly genuine and rather predictable,” a new mission emerges for the continuation of the club’s work: to correct and modify every small imperfection in Loran’s films, always guided by their absolute love for him. After months of painstaking effort, they finally succeed in eliminating every flaw from his oeuvre. They believe they now possess his complete filmography in its perfect form, without a single defect. At that very moment, Loris Loran announces his retirement from cinema. Strangely, the news brings them relief. They can now rest and enjoy his films in their restored perfection, safe from the possibility of any future cinematic misstep. But one year later, Loran announces his return to the big screen. Faced with this unexpected news, the members of the club decide that they have only one option left to safeguard the perfection of his work forever. They love Loris Loran so much that they must kill him.

“We Love Loris Loran So Much” is a devised docu-fiction performance inspired freely by Julio Cortázar’s short story “We Love Glenda So Much” [“Queremos tanto a Glenda”]. It explores the creative yet destructive power of a group that dedicates itself obsessively to a vision with absolute faith—and a touch of madness. Because what else could the advice “kill your darlings before they kill you” mean?

At the center of the work lies the fictional figure of Loris Loran, constructed through a combination of invented and real documents drawn from the biographies, interviews, and filmographies of iconic Greek and international filmmakers. His enigmatic persona gradually emerges through the fragmented narratives and unreliable testimonies of his devoted audience.

Set in a space resembling a film studio, the members of the secret club interact with material drawn from different cinematic genres, reconstruct existing film sequences, and share the stage with a range of theatrical and audiovisual elements, including video, live music, and live camera feeds.

Moving between theater and cinema, “We Love Loris Loran So Much” explores a universe without clear boundaries: a space between fantasy and reality, where violence takes on a disturbingly familiar form and is justified as a ‘necessary evil,’ while love for another person becomes unbearable. It is the love of the mythical boar that charges towards the beautiful Adonis and kills him with its ‘loving’ tusks, not out of a desire to wound him, but simply in an attempt to caress him (see Byung-Chul Han, “Topology of Violence,” Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2018).

Or perhaps it is simply an attempt to reframe my own personal obsessions.