Yorgos Lanthimos, director of The Lobster, talks finding filmmaking freedom in England and two new projects

Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos, probably one of the most distinctive voices in that already distinctive cinema scene that Greece has produced in recent years, did something special to preserve his idiosyncratic voice when he switched to making films in English. He moved to England. Often, you hear about foreign filmmakers, especially Oscar-nominated ones, like Lanthimos, wooed by Hollywood to make their English language debut. But, when we spoke, he made it clear that’s not what he wanted to do with his career. We spoke while he was in Los Angeles … for a brief press tour.

The Lobster offers brilliant satire of the corrupted expectations of human coupling — a film review

Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos burst onto the International film scene in 2009 with the disturbing, Oscar-nominated family drama Dogtooth. There was no way it was going to win. It peered deep into the malleable psyche of humanity, a sort of parable of Hitler-like brainwashing in an intimate domestic setting. Now he emerges with his first English-language movie, and it’s no less critical of the dumb things people do when they follow the crowd without question.