Tzeli Hadjidimitriou was born and raised on the island of Lesvos, Greece, and is an award-winning filmmaker, fine art photographer, and writer. Her photographs, which capture liminal atmospheres, places, and people, have been exhibited in solo and group shows in Australia, China, Italy, Turkey, and Greece and published. After attending a series of seminars by Michelangelo Antonioni on the art of cinematography, she pursued further studies in Cinematography in Rome.

Tzeli has been filming and photographing the lives of the inhabitants of Lesvos since 1990. In her work, she uses all her experiences and capacities, aiming to give space and voice to ordinary people, who are not famous or considered extraordinary in any way, but who live their lives in simplicity, outside the daily headlines.

Recent films focus on gender, including “Sappho’s Granddaughters”, where the older women of Eressos tell their moving stories; ‘Mr. Dimitris and Dimitroula’, a rare record of a gender-nonconforming person on Sykamia Lesvos, who tragically lost his/her life after being unjustly detained in a mental asylum; and ‘Sappho singing’, a joyful ode to Sappho, who revisits contemporary Lesvos. Her short films have been screened across the world and won several awards. She is an expert on Sappho’s poetry and regularly works as a consultant for BBC television on programs about Sappho and Lesvos.