Tzeli Hadjidimitriou

Tzeli Hadjidimitriou was born and raised on the island of Lesvos, Greece, and is an award-winning filmmaker, fine art photographer, and writer. Her photographs have been exhibited in solo and group shows in Australia, China, Italy, Turkey, and Greece and published in ten books. After attending a series of seminars by Michelangelo Antonioni on the art of cinematography, she pursued further studies in cinematography in Rome.

Tzeli has been filming and photographing the lives of the inhabitants of Lesvos since 1990. In her work, she uses all her experiences and capacities, aiming to give space and voice to ordinary people who are not famous or considered extraordinary in any way but who live their simple lives outside the daily headlines.

She captures liminal atmospheres, places, and people in her photographic books, such as “39 Coffee Houses and a Barber’s Shop,” “Sacred Water: The Mineral Springs of Lesvos,” and “In Communion with Stone,” the latter about the rural architecture of Lesvos. She works as a television consultant on programs about Sappho and Lesvos. Her book “A Girl’s Guide to Lesbos” is the first guide for the island speaking about the story of the lesbian community in the village of Eressos and her connection to the ancient poet Sappho. Her short films have been screened across the world and won several awards.

In her short documentary “In Search of Orpheus,” she meets local fishermen who tell her stories about their lives and the place woven through the myth of Orpheus. Recent short films focus on gender, including "Sappho’s Granddaughters," where the older women of Eressos tell their stories; “Mr Dimitris and Dimitroula,” a record of a gender-nonconforming person on Sykamia, Lesvos, who tragically lost their life after being unjustly detained in a mental asylum; and “Sappho Singing,” a joyful ode to Sappho, who “revisits” contemporary Lesvos.

“Lesvia” is her first feature documentary.