#when he says the cuba line in spanish i nutted

[acoolemocucumber]

the real voltron power move is rewatching all of the lance scenes in different languages

[thelondonfilmschool]

WHEN ALUMNI CONVENE - Manos Ioannou

Filmmaker Manos Ioannou started life as an editor working for local TV channels back in Cyprus, but always wanted to get into films.  With the Cypriot film industry relatively small at the time, Ioannou looked into film school in the US, Cuba and London.

After a tour, Ioannou set his heart on attending The London Film School, and hasn’t looked back. Sophie McVeigh found out what attracted him to the school and the effects the LFS and the city of London have had on him, before exploring the Cypriot film industry and common themes within Ioannou’s work.

Sophie McVeigh (S.M): What made you choose London and the LFS? 

Manos Ioannou (M.I): I chose LFS because I came for a tour, I saw the school, I got the energy and the vibe of the school and I met some tutors. I think what drew me to the school is that it’s just filmmaking. Because before school I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to do, I just knew I wanted to be involved in films but in which capacity I had no idea. I was like, whatever man, I just want to be on set! And then I thought,”Filmmaking? OK, I’m going to learn everything and I’m going choose." 

S.M: What was it like moving from Cyprus to a big city like London? 

M.I: It was definitely one of the most interesting periods of my life. I mean, I’d lived abroad almost my whole life so it wasn’t a shock to me moving to London, but I had a whole life back in Cyprus, a house, a car, a job – you’re in that routine and then suddenly you just drop everything. To move to a new city with new people, it was exciting and invigorating – I didn’t even go back home for three years after I moved here for the first time. I would rather just stay here and work on films and get to know the city and the people. I think after not even a year I subconsciously made the decision to stay in London. 

S.M: Is there much of a film industry in Cyprus? 

M.I: Back then, in 2011? No. Really exclusive, really hard to get into, I mean almost impossible. Now, oddly enough, after the financial crisis, I went back home in September, and [it] is buzzing. There are short films getting made all over Cyprus – documentaries, feature films … The latest feature film that they shot is in the Berlinale, which is a major feat for the director. He has a similar background to me – he attended NYU, and stayed in New York trying to make it there. But it’s tough. You’re abroad and you’re trying to make it in a foreign country, it’s tough getting to the connections and everything. So at some point he said, "No. I don’t want to do a half-arsed kind of job. I want to be a director.’ So he moved back home [and] found this really beautiful, personal story in this small village in Cyprus and he shot a beautiful film. So I’m really hopeful for cinema in Cyprus. 

S.M: Could you see yourself doing something similar one day? 

M.I: To be honest? Yes. I have family here in the UK, and they moved here in the 60s, back when everybody was poor in Cyprus. We’d just got our independence and we were a young nation, so most people moved to the UK to try to make money and send it back home. And I remember, the first night I came to London, of course my uncles said, "Come over!”. Cypriots are a very generous, very open-hearted kind of people. And we sat and were drinking and they were telling me stories from back in the day. And George, my uncle, told me about his last day in the village, saying goodbye to everybody and waiting to take the bus to go to the boat to come to London. He was telling me how he would say goodbye to his young sisters, his friends and everything. Then he said to me, "It was the first time I saw the sea." Can you imagine that? Leaving from this small village and that is your whole world? He travels all the way to the port in Limassol and he sees the sea for the first time, and he gets on that boat for three weeks. I thought, that is one story that I feel I could definitely tell with a more personal touch. I felt it when I was moving here, y’know? The circumstances are the same, when you make that decision to leave your home and go and try and make your fortune in another country. So I can relate to that and I would love to tell that story. I think it’s going to have to be a Cypriot-British production, because it is a journey and the journey begins in Cyprus and has to end here. 

S.M: Are there any common themes that you notice in Cypriot filmmaking? 

M.I: Identity, I think. It’s always a struggle with identity. And I think it’s because we have so many influences in Cyprus. We’re very much British influenced. Like, everything is the same, just like in England. So there was no culture shock when I moved here, it’s not like I moved to Tokyo or something. Everything is similar – we drive the same way, we have the signs the same. So I think as Cypriots we struggle a little bit with our identity. Are we Greek, are we Greek-Cypriots, are we just Cypriots? Historically, Cyprus was almost always under occupation. We were occupied by almost every prominent nation back in the day. I guess we were super-friendly! Even in our language now, there are so many influences from Italian, Spanish, and Turkish especially. We were under Turkish occupation for almost 400 years. That is a lot of time. So I think identity is definitely an issue. 

S.M: Did you find London a welcoming place to move to? 

M.I: Very. I never felt unwanted. I made friends so quickly, so easily, who are friends to this day. And not just the LFS because I’m still friends with almost everybody in my term – we still talk to this day and work together. But outside of film school, the same. Friends that I’ve met in 2011, we still talk to this day. I can’t say the same for Cyprus. Even though it’s smaller and it should be easier to maintain contact, I think in Cyprus, if you’re not in my immediate social circle then I can exclude you. Whereas here I think people are warmer. They call you and say "Oh, I’m going to have a get-together over the weekend, you wanna come over and meet my friends?" It’s open and it’s vibrant and I love it. 

S.M: Was it easy to make contacts in the film world outside of LFS? 

M.I: Yeah, I graduated and I got a bit lucky I think. I shot this behind the scenes for a fashion shoot and it went well, I was polite and out of people’s way, and then the film came out nice and they saw my short film, my grad film, and that led to more jobs. And that’s the thing – when I work with somebody, I always try to keep it going. I always say "Hey, I’m available, we can keep in touch if you like working with me?" And that worked. Word of mouth, I got my connections and I met people. 

S.M: What have you been working on since you left LFS? 

M.I: When you leave film school you’re so narrative driven, and then you want to try things as a director. You’re like, "OK, I want to get into commercials, I want to do music videos …”, so that’s what I did. I tried to broaden my knowledge as a director. So I shot music videos, short documentaries - a lot of them because it’s nice to find intimate, little personal stories. You can make a nice piece, four or five minutes, post it online and that’s a film down the line, y’know? 

I shot a lot of fashion, because of that first shoot that I did – I shot for Vogue, for Numero Toyko, and I got commission work. I went to Tokyo and LA to shoot. That was great, I mean I was straight out of film school! I was inexperienced and so scared. But having done that and worked with production companies, at some point I just realised that if I don’t do drama then I don’t feel that I’m actually doing what I’m supposed to be doing. So since I started working for the LFS [on reception], I’ve started writing again. Because I didn’t write for maybe two years, which is a lot of time not to write. You spend all this time promoting yourself – websites and social media and all this stuff. I’m like, “Seriously, do I have to tweet now?! Oh man! Do I have to Facebook everything I do?" And I hated that, I’ve got to be honest. Now I have steady work here and I can just go home and write. I thought that was just invigorating. So now I’m writing a short for a production company. It’s a friend of mine, she came to a screening of my short film, DILIP’S CASTLE, and she sent me an email the other day saying "My production company wants to make their first short film”. It’s a big production company, Sylvain Chomet is one of the directors which is nuts! He’s massive, he’s one of the best animators that ever lived! And she said they want a short film, seven pages, really short. Usually I write longer shorts, I tend to over-write I think. It could be part of what I really want to write, which is going to be my first feature. I want it to be little vignette of stories in London. Each story is independent and individual, different characters that don’t know each other but there is a permeating theme about each story and that’s going to complement a bigger narrative, which is London basically. That’s what I want to do – like Paris, Je T’aime, Short Cuts, Nashville. I like big casts, to introduce new characters all the time.  Even in my short film I introduced nine characters in 5 minutes!

S.M: You mentioned DILIP’S CASTLE – was that your graduation film? 

M.I: Yes, it premiered at the London Film Festival. It also got in Short Waves in Poland and the East End Film Festival, which was a kick-ass film festival. They take care of you and really promote you. Every time we screened it, it played really well. I was the writer-director. It’s about identity, again – as a Cypriot, I’m preoccupied with that! (laughs) So it’s the story of a mid-life crisis for a man. In the synopsis we say his wife cheated on him and he left home, but with the actors we established a different kind of backstory. And I kind of like the ambiguity of never showing the wife and never knowing what happened, but seeing only him in that state and on that journey is enough to say that, "OK, something bad is happening at home and that’s why he’s running away". Basically the story’s one night in London where he just goes from one place to another and meets a random person who leads him into a world that he has never been in before. And then, instead of trying to run away from home, it’s about trying to get back home. I think, anything that has to do with a journey, I’m down. I just love it. It’s a constant exploration of yourself in a journey. One of my favourite stories of all times is Odysseus. How awesome is that story? He’s in a ten year war, then it takes him another ten years to go back home! And he has this tenacity and he’s smart and he finds his way around. He was a major influence for my main character. He’s charming but not really. He’s kind of nonchalant about it, and he’s smart … one thing led to another and I wanted to do the same. 

S.M: You’ve mentioned Robert Altman and Greek myths – what else inspires you? 

M.I: Definitely John Cassavetes. My favourite director by far. He was an actor’s director, and I think the best. Specifically, HUSBANDS was a major influence for DILIP’S CASTLE. It’s about four friends and one of them passes away. The three friends go to the funeral, and afterwards go for a drink, and another drink, and then they carry on and don’t go home. They come to London and they go through these adventures. They’re trying to rediscover their friendship, and again it’s a journey and you rediscover yourself. When I saw that film I was blown away! In the camera department [at the LFS], they have the camera that shot HUSBANDS! And when I saw that – oh my God! I was taking selfies by the camera (laughs). It’s one of his finest films. Definitely one of the best crime/gangster films I’ve seen is Cassavetes’ THE KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE. I’m not even embarrassed to say, I showed most of that film to my director of photography and I was like "OK, we’re copying exactly this!" (laughs)

S.M: Who would be your dream collaborator? 

M.I: I would love to direct an Andy Kauffman script, definitely. Or A Tony Gilroy script, like MICHAEL CLAYTON. That was the bee’s knees. That’s definitely one of the best screenplays I’ve seen. I would love to produce a Robert Altman film, because I do produce. He’s a master of cinema. The way he revolutionised cinema in the Seventies, no other director has done that. The Seventies is the best decade for films, I think. Imagine how many talented directors came up – Friedkin, Oldman, Bogdanovich. Cassavetes was active in the Seventies. It was the golden era. If anything, I would want to be in my 20s in the Seventies and just be in the film industry. I would grip, I would do anything! Anything just to be in the film industry in the Seventies! (laughs)