Yorgos Lanthimos's The Lobster (2015) returns to CGV theaters in Korea on November 11, eleven years after it first opened there in October 2015. This run is exclusive to CGV and comes with newly translated subtitles. The story begins in a hotel where guests who fail to find a partner within forty-five days are turned into animals. It was Lanthimos's first English-language film. It won the Jury Prize at Cannes in 2015 and was nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the 89th Academy Awards.

The Korean rerelease poster for The Lobster, with an upside-down view of the hotel's surroundings at the top and Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz walking side by side on a mountain path at the bottom.
The Korean rerelease poster. The landscape around the hotel is flipped upside down across the top, and Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz walk side by side on a mountain path below. Challan

We'll leave the film itself to the theaters. This piece is about the director's other work. Lanthimos takes photographs. On his film sets, he brings out a film camera between scenes. Since 2024 he has published three photobooks of those pictures and held exhibitions in Los Angeles, Athens and Turin. The next one opens in Amsterdam in February.

A Camera at Nineteen

Lanthimos bought a camera at nineteen, when he entered film school. In an interview last year with the photography magazine Aperture, he said that at first he shot all sorts of things without much purpose. The photographers he studied back then were Robert Frank, Diane Arbus and Stephen Shore.

He describes himself as very shy, so walking up to strangers on the street to photograph them did not come easily. Once he started making films, he took his pictures on set. He found it much more comfortable there than out on unfamiliar streets.

He mostly shoots medium format. According to the May 2026 issue of the British magazine Monocle, he switches between a Plaubel Makina 67, a Mamiya 7 and a Pentax 67, and these days he carries a Hasselblad. Everything is shot on film. He has also built his own darkroom next to his film editing room in Athens.

“Portrait Time!”

Poor Things (2023) was shot at a large studio in Budapest, Hungary. Whenever a scene change left even a few seconds free, Lanthimos would shout “Portrait time!” and bring out his large-format camera. The black-and-white pictures from that shoot were all made with the large-format camera, and the color portraits with a medium-format one.

A black-and-white portrait of a figure in a flat cap and checked jacket, standing with hands clasped and head tilted slightly.
A black-and-white portrait from Dear God, the Parthenon is still broken. A figure in a flat cap stands with hands clasped and head tilted slightly. The street and trees behind dissolve into a blur. Yorgos Lanthimos / Void, © Yorgos Lanthimos, 2024

Others on set began taking pictures too. According to Lanthimos, Emma Stone got interested in loading film and developing negatives. Jesse Plemons, who appeared in Kinds of Kindness (2024), fell hard for film photography, and Will Tracy, who wrote Bugonia (2025), took it up as well.

Three Photobooks

The first photobook was Dear God, the Parthenon is still broken (Void, 2024), from the Athens photobook publisher Void. It gathers pictures Lanthimos took while making Poor Things. The title is a line from a postcard that the heroine, Bella Baxter, meant to send from Athens to “God,” that is, Dr. Godwin Baxter. The scene was cut from the finished film. Several pages fold out to both sides, and opening them reveals the equipment behind the set: lighting rigs, scaffolding, boom stands and backdrops.

A beige cloth binding: one cover stamped with the title, the other stamped with a black mask shape, and the spine between them.
Dear God, the Parthenon is still broken. Beige cloth covers, one stamped with the title and the other with a black mask shape, and the spine between them. Void

The second, i shall sing these songs beautifully (MACK, 2024), came out of New Orleans, where Kinds of Kindness was shot. It is a 112-page hardcover, and its title comes from a poem by the ancient Greek poet Sappho. Short texts by Lanthimos run between the photographs. It was Michael Mack, the publisher of MACK, who suggested including them. Lanthimos says this book has far more black and white than the first, and much more flash.

A book bound in blue-gray cloth, with a black-and-white photograph of a swan-shaped ice sculpture glowing in the dark mounted at the center of the cover.
The cover of i shall sing these songs beautifully. A single black-and-white photograph of a swan-shaped ice sculpture is mounted at the center of the blue-gray cloth. Courtesy of the artist and MACK
A black-and-white photograph of two legs in high-heeled sandals standing on a water-stained sidewalk beside a car with its door open.
From the same book. Two legs in high-heeled sandals stand on a water-stained sidewalk beside a car with its door open. Courtesy of the artist and MACK

The third, VISCIN (MACK, 2026), was shot around the Bugonia locations in Atlanta, Georgia, and Henley-on-Thames, England. It is a leporello, a long strip of pages folded like an accordion. According to Michael Mack, Lanthimos wanted a form that would unfold the way a story unspools, so that the book itself would look like a sculpture. The photographs have nothing to do with the film's plot. They catch objects and brief moments at the edges of the set.

Exhibitions, With Amsterdam Next

His first exhibition ran from March 28 to June 20, 2025, at the Webber gallery in Los Angeles. It centered on pictures from the first two books.

From March 7 to May 17 this year, Onassis Stegi in his hometown of Athens showed 182 of his photographs. It was his first exhibition in Greece, and Michael Mack curated it. Of the four groups of work, three were shot on the sets of the three films and around their locations. The fourth was personal work, shown for the first time, made while walking alone through Athens or visiting islands in the Aegean. VISCIN came out in time for the opening.

A black-and-white close-up of a dog's face, turned to one side. The focus falls around the eyes, and the background is blurred.
An image used to announce the Athens exhibition. A close-up of a dog's face, turned to one side. Courtesy of Yorgos Lanthimos / MACK, © Yorgos Lanthimos, 2024

From April 9 to June 2, he also showed work at EXPOSED Torino Photo Festival in Turin, Italy. Pictures from the making of Poor Things and Kinds of Kindness hung in the crypt of San Michele Arcangelo. All three exhibitions have now closed.

The next one opens at Foam, the photography museum in Amsterdam. From February 12 to June 6, 2027, it will show close to 180 photographs in four groups. Three were shot around the locations in New Orleans, Atlanta and Henley-on-Thames and on the sets at the Budapest studio. The fourth is personal work he is still making in his native Greece. Michael Mack is curating again. Foam has announced that a fourth photobook, no word for blue, will come out in September 2027.

Between Film and Photography

In the Monocle interview, Lanthimos called photography a palate cleanser, something he turns to after finishing a film. He also pointed out that it doesn't need the crowds of people, the money or the planning that a film does. Freed from a storyline, he said, he can look at a building or a landscape more simply. Even when he presses the shutter on a film set, he says, “I'm taking photos for myself first.”

If you see The Lobster again on November 11, it's worth also looking at what caught his eye on the sets of his three most recent films. How much does a scene from the films have in common with a frame from the books, and how far apart are they?

Details

  • Korean rerelease The Lobster (2015), Wednesday, November 11, 2026, exclusively at CGV, with newly translated subtitles
  • Director Yorgos Lanthimos
  • Cast Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, Olivia Colman, John C. Reilly, Léa Seydoux, Ben Whishaw
  • Awards Jury Prize, Cannes 2015; nominated for Best Original Screenplay, 89th Academy Awards
  • Exhibition Yorgos Lanthimos: Photographs, Foam (Amsterdam), February 12 to June 6, 2027
  • Photobooks Dear God, the Parthenon is still broken (Void, 2024), i shall sing these songs beautifully (MACK, 2024), VISCIN (MACK, 2026)
  • Also rereleased the same day La La Land (2016), 10th-anniversary rerelease in theaters across Korea. The film was shot on 35mm in the 2.55:1 CinemaScope aspect ratio.