Eva Nathena & Dionyssis Samiotis On Crafting Their Surprising Greek Box Office Hit ‘Murderess’ – Contenders International

deadline.com:

After two decades as a leading costume and set designer in Greece, artist Eva Nathena has stepped behind the camera to direct her first feature with Murderess.

Based on Alexandros Papadiamantis’ popular novel The Murderess — a seminal piece of literature in Greece — the film is set in 1900s Greek society in which Hadoula (Karyofyllia Karabeti), an older woman trapped in her own mother’s rejection, struggles to survive the dictates of a patriarchal society.

She turns to murdering young girls in the town, to “release” them from their social fate.  “I first read the book when I was 16 in high school,” Nathena said. “They teach us this great novel in school, and I felt a very strange familiarity with the main character.

And I was frightened. How could I ever be related to a woman that kills babies? So I took some distance from the book.”  Nathena said she revisited the book after learning of a past trauma in her mother’s life.