Director Smaragda Nitsopoulou
Photography Romnick Palo
Original score Νίκος Χαλβατζής
Sound design Elizabeth Si
Post production The End
Producer Zeta Mobarak
Production Rocketfilm Productions

'Death Under Control' is a documentary about the neighbourhood that was created around and nurtured by the 1st cemetery of Athens. Athenians always respected the dead and their social status was reflected in the grandeur of the epitaphs they created for their departed loved ones. But the monuments and tombs aren’t only for the dead. The need for a material memory of the departed mostly satisfies the living’s need to express their faith in an afterlife. The religious notions may vary over the years but the ecumenical need to remember remains the same. Throughout the years, mostly poor unskilled workers flocked to the neighbourhood to work in all aspects of the funerary procession. As traditions changed and evolved, these professions gained structure and gravitas but never escaped their discomforting associations. In 'Death under control' we meet the descendants of the first workers of death.
Businesses that go back for at least 4 generations with undisrupted continuity. What is considered to be a brim and macabre form to make a living, is seen under a new perspective from the stories that morticians, funerary house owners, florists, and sculptors narrate.

Houston Greek Film Festival
Polish International Film Festival
Peloponnisos International Documentary Festival
Balkan Can Kino
Luleå International Film Festival
Stockholm City Film Festival
UIC Barcelona International Film Award

Trailer