18/08/2026 - We talked to the German director about his gripping and very funny horror film, as well as his fascination for tennis

(© Locarno Film Festival/Ti-Press)

German director Nikias Chryssos' fourth feature has celebrated its world premiere at this year's Locarno Film Festival, in the out of competition section. Bloody Tennis is a gripping and also very funny horror film. We talked to the director about his fascination for tennis as well as his penchant for reclusive settings.

Cineuropa: You come from the same town as Boris Becker. Is this really enough to explain your interest in tennis?
Nikias Chryssos: Perhaps not on its own [laughs]. In the 1980s, tennis was going through its golden age in Germany, with legendary players like Boris Becker and Steffi Graf. That was when I first started watching tennis and became interested in it. Tennis was also played a little in my family. I simply found the sport fascinating because it combines athleticism and dynamism with a great sense of calm. There is something monotonous, almost hypnotic, about it; at the same time, there is enormous power behind every shot. The whole environment has a certain elegance and something slightly elitist about it, especially Wimbledon with its white outfits and the upper-class posturing. That stayed with me, as did the monotonous sound of the ball being hit. Then there is the intense sense of a duel between two people facing each other without physically touching, as they would in a boxing match. It is simply the energy of the ball going back and forth between them. Combined with the somewhat elitist yet somehow beautiful, sunny setting of a tennis boarding school, I found this an interesting contrast for a horror film.

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You turn this duel into a fight to the death...
In this fantastical version of a tennis boarding school, almost cult-like and religious elements become intertwined with the sport. Tennis is heavily dependent on the players' mental attitude, which is why the players can have such extreme personalities. I found it interesting to have them clash in such an environment. It offered a way of translating performance pressure and the will to win into something eerie and grotesque.

Looking at your other films, too, it is obvious that you are fascinated by these forced communities of people, by people clashing in a confined space. What are you planning to do next?
Maybe at some point, it will be time to break out, before I run out of claustrophobic settings. I am currently working on a book adaptation. It has many other facets, but the main setting there is a luxury resort in Tunisia. This idea of a secluded space is something that appeals to me. In this respect, I see my first three feature films as a small trilogy. They are often about people who arrive somewhere in such an environment, try to escape, or become trapped there. I see this combination of real-life settings with partially religious, cult-like or totalitarian elements, as in Bloody Tennis, as playgrounds where grotesque exaggeration can give rise to absurd humour.

You created a predominantly female ensemble of characters. How did you develop the concept?
That was established from the very beginning. I wanted to make a film that would be told more from a female perspective and tell the story with an international ensemble, with young players coming from all over the world. In this setting, it made sense that a woman should be at the head of the academy, someone who is a kind of mother figure - both mother and father, as she herself says - to the girls.

Were there any particular inspirations for the film?
There are several movies I could name, such as Suspiria and Phenomena by Dario Argento, the classic boarding-school stories, or The House That Screamed from 1969. One of my favourite films used to be If.... by Lindsay Anderson, which also takes place in a boarding school. And then there are flicks like Mean Girls, Bring It On or Showgirls. There is such a great energy behind Showgirls, which is set in this strange entertainment environment, and at the same time, it's got this take on US consumer culture. Everything is so over the top. I found the conflicts among the characters themselves interesting, fuelled by the great goal that awaits them.

Was it difficult to find your actresses?
It was a great collaboration with Alexandra Koknat, the casting agent, and a long process because we were looking internationally, especially across Europe. We wanted to cast the young female lead first, and then build the rest of the ensemble around her, step by step. The first person we found was Sandra Guldberg Kampp, a young Danish actress who plays an American. With her in particular, but also with Helena Zengel and the others, the casting process took place in several stages: from an e-casting to a live online casting, then a personal meeting, and finally a tennis session. Our approach was not to start out with real female tennis players and then discover someone who might have acting talent, but to put the focus on the best and most fitting actors.

There is one thing I have to hold against you: the cat.
I'm sorry [laughs] - the cat is fine! There was a Letterboxd review that said: "Half a star deducted for cat violence." It is actually a myth that tennis strings are made from catgut - but that they can be fabricated from animal intestines is generally true. I really wanted to incorporate this.

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