Iris Close-Up | Masterclass with Vicky Krieps

The inaugural edition of Iris Close-Up welcomes award-winning actress Vicky Krieps. Best known for her leading role in Marie Kreutzer’s “Corsage” (2022), which earned her the European Film Awards Best Actress award, as well as for her performance opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Phantom Thread” (2017), Vicky Krieps invites us into the quiet spaces where she has always felt most at home.

As a young film enthusiast and later young acting student, I always felt more drawn to the furniture, the landscape, the animals, the sky, and the light rather than the actor, the dialogue, or the performance – and I always wondered why. Like in Jean Cocteau’s “La Belle et la Bête”: the most intriguing thing to me was the moving hands in the wall. And then I realized: it was because they were silent. Because something was able to travel, something was conveyed in this space where we (the people) forget what it is about, where it is happening or why. Quietly watching from the sidelines.”

–Vicky Krieps

Conceived as a platform for dialogue, inspiration, and exchange, Iris Close-Up expands the scope of the Iris Awards beyond the annual ceremony, creating opportunities for meaningful encounters between Greek and European film professionals while strengthening the international visibility of Greek filmmaking.

This year’s edition also forms part of the wider cultural program leading up to the European Film Awards – Athens 2027, which will bring Europe’s most prestigious film event to the Greek capital in January 2027. Iris Close-Up and a series of forthcoming initiatives are included in a broader program developed by the Hellenic Film Academy in collaboration with and supported by the Hellenic Film and Audiovisual Center (EKKOMED), the organization responsible for hosting the European Film Awards in Greece.