- Born
- Manuel de Coco was born in Athens, Greece on the 24th of December, 1975. He is a film director and writer, best known for his poetic and transcendental style. He is also renowned for travelling to extreme places to explore humanity's relationship with spirituality.
Through his films one feels the harmony and divine essence of the earth, with a clear look at humanity that reveals a world in crisis. He frequently uses very profound narratives, with an existential voice over, non-professional actors and unconventional techniques to create a dreamlike and hypnotic effect. His films are visually arresting and immersive offering a different perspective on the art of cinema which elevates his work from a film to an experience.
His directorial debut, the cult feature film "Unknown Land" (2012), was filmed in Israel and in Yemen (Socotra Island) during the period of "Arab Spring" at the monsoon season, with a broken camera. Its budget was 25.000 euros & the shootings lasted only 12 days. It is the first feature film which has been filmed in Socotra. This isolated island has been described as the most alien landscape on earth. The film has been selected at festivals worldwide (Cairo IFF, Sao Paulo IFF, Andrei Tarkovsky IFF, Film Festival Cologne etc.) and won several awards. Initially, the film would be Yemen's official entry for the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award (Oscar), but Manuel de Coco was endorsed in Yemen. The film has been banned in many countries of the Arab world and in Israel.
Eleven years later Manuel de Coco returned to the big screen with his 2nd feature film, the avant-garde docu-fiction "Invisible World" (2023) filmed over a 17-year period in 10 countries (Tibet, Mongolia, Russia, Israel, Palestine, Greece, Italy, Vatican City, Nepal, India). As a result of Manuel's choice at the editing, scenes in Nepal and India were cut completely. Most festivals were reluctant to present this controversial film due to political and religious reasons. Finally, "Invisible World" had its world premiere at the 27th Avanca Film Festival in Portugal and has been screened at a few other festivals followed by numerous awards.
Manuel de Coco's truly grand vision of the themes he dealt with in his first two films, has divided critics and audiences. Currently he is in pre-production of his 3rd feature film.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Other side Films
- Often shoots films without an official script.
- Narration in his films is often delivered in hushed, almost whispering tones.
- Manuel de Coco is a Christian philosopher-poet whose meanings of his films can often be vague and elusive. He seems to be against of thriving globalization, due to politics and religion that exploit the expression of human individuality in the name of profit. His films are a forceful denunciation at the corruption of our humanity.
- Manuel de Coco can be a divisive figure; critics dismiss him as a pretentious airhead who would rather film grass blowing in the wind than tell a story. Even if the story is a distant and dreamlike meditation on nature and man. His considerations of the eternal connection between all things and the conflict between the ways of man and the ways of nature are deeply portrayed by a personal quest for the truth. He is also a profoundly religious filmmaker. Notoriously private, Manuel de Coco is not exactly out there declaring his relationship to faith in interviews. But there's an obvious Christian spirit to his work, and he is utterly unselfconscious about exploring straightforwardly religious themes in his work, which is one of many things that put him out of fashion with most contemporary filmmakers.
- Manuel de Coco has filmed "Unknown Land" using people from the locality of Socotra, who had no knowledge of the script but only the film's general idea. His intention was not to let them know the details of the script, so that they would simply go along with the idea of the movie. Rehearsals with these individuals took place only a few minutes before each scene was shot. This allowed them to feel comfortable and to improvise freely. In this way they could remain simple and the authenticity of the story could be preserved, rather than having them interpret roles as cinematic heroes who were simply delivering the script.
- Manuel de Coco is a risk-taker. Having filmed in Yemen during the Arab Spring - for the banned 2012 feature film "Unknown Land" - and putting himself in danger, it was no surprise that the 47-year-old filmmaker would jump into filming "Invisible World" undercover in Tibet and Palestine. The director has spent the last 17 years working on this docu-fiction.
- Our soul is an unknown land, which few have managed to explore.
- A plunge into the unknown brings together something magical exceeding every day life.
- Cinema needs more poetic films.
- Once again the audience remained silent and motionless inside the cinema after the screening. The end titles fell off, the lights went out but their hearts were already connected to the secret power of my film "Unknown Land"
- My films are ahead of their time, and some of them may not be recognized as long as I live. Perhaps, never, unless someone discovers them.
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