Panos Cosmatos

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Panos Cosmatos
Born (1974-02-01) February 1, 1974 (age 52)
Occupations
  • Film director
  • screenwriter
  • film producer
Years active1993–present
FatherGeorge P. Cosmatos

Panos Cosmatos (born February 1,[1] 1974) is an Italian-Canadian film director and screenwriter. He is known for Beyond the Black Rainbow[2] and Mandy.[3]

Life and career

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Cosmatos was born in Italy to Greek-Italian film-maker George P. Cosmatos (whose credits include Rambo: First Blood Part II and Cobra) and Swedish sculptor Birgitta Ljungberg-Cosmatos. The family moved to Victoria, British Columbia, in the early 1980s.[4]

As a child, Cosmatos frequented a video store named Video Attic. During these trips, he would browse the horror and sci-fi sections looking at the covers of films he was not allowed to watch, instead imagining what these films were like based on the images.[5]

His first break in the film industry was being a second-unit video assist operator for his father's film Tombstone.

He made his first feature film, Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010), by financing it through D.V.D. residuals from Tombstone.[6]

In 2017, Cosmatos directed the action horror film Mandy, which was produced by Legion M.[7] The film starred Nicolas Cage, Andrea Riseborough and Linus Roache.[8] It premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival on January 19,[9] and began a limited cinematic release and VOD play on September 14, 2018.[10]

He is married to Andrea Cosmatos.[11]

Themes

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The director admits a dislike for baby boomers' new age spiritual ideals, an issue he addresses in Beyond the Black Rainbow. The use of psychedelic drugs for mind-expansion purposes is also explored,[12] although Cosmatos' take on it is "dark and disturbing", a "brand of psychedelia that stands in direct opposition to the flower child, magic mushroom peace trip" wrote a reviewer describing one of the characters who happened to be a boomer:[13]

I look at Arboria as kind of naïve. He had the best of intentions of wanting to expand human consciousness, but I think his ego got in the way of that and ultimately it turned into a poisonous, destructive thing. Because Arboria is trying to control consciousness and control the mind. There is a moment of truth in the film where the whole thing starts to disintegrate because it stops being about their humanity and becomes about an unattainable goal. That is the "Black Rainbow": trying to achieve some kind of unattainable state that is ultimately, probably destructive.[14]

Filmography

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Film

Year Title Director Writer
2010 Beyond the Black Rainbow Yes Yes
2018 Mandy Yes Yes
TBA Flesh of the Gods[15] Yes Story
Nekrokosm[16] Yes Story

Executive producer

Producer

Television

Year Title Director Writer Notes
2022 Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities Yes Yes Episode: "The Viewing"

References

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