Greek director Konstantina Kotzamani’s Titanic Ocean transposes the familiar mermaid myth into contemporary girl culture through a group of girls training in ‘mermaiding’ at a Japanese mermaid academy. Instead of their real names, the girls take stage names like ‘Deep Sea’, ‘Eternal Sunset’, and ‘Yokohama Blue’ dyeing their hair in colors all their own as they train to become professional mermaids. Expected to meet exacting standards of beauty, flexibility, and breath control, the girls feel the pressure of a punishing physical regimen and a fiercely competitive culture (evoking, in many ways, K-POP idol industry). The story centers on Deep Sea, who nurses a crush on Kotaro, the swim coach at the mermaid academy, layering the siren myth of seduction and ruin over Andersen’s The Little Mermaid, with its motifs of first love, loss of voice, and transformation. A dreamlike fantasy of girls setting themselves free from within a system of desire.
A Greek screenwriter and director, she had world premieres of her short films at three major festivals: Washingtonia (2014) at the Berlinale, Limbo (2016) at Cannes Critics′ Week, and Electric Swan (2019) at Venice. These films, along with What Mary Didn′t Know (2024), earned her four Best Short Film awards from the Hellenic Film Academy and two European Film Award nominations for Best Short Film. Her debut feature Titanic Ocean is a five-country co-production between Greece, Romania, Japan, Spain, and France. It was completed after a long development process that passed through TorinoFilmLab (2018) and Rotterdam′s CineMart (2019) before receiving development funding from Eurimages (2022). It had its world premiere in the Un Certain Regard section of the 2026 Cannes Film Festival.
From Busan International Film Festival 2026, No. 31
